After Dinner Tonight

We had company over for dinner tonight. I made Pumpkin Peanut Ginger soup with the addition of tvrog, which is like a slightly sour dry curd cottage cheese. A little onion, a little garlic, some cayenne pepper and salt. Yum yum!! Served with whole grain and sunflower seeds bread topped with melted cheese. Tomatoes and cukes on the side. Tasty.

I needed this.

I did something I have not done before. I confronted one of the women about her relationship with Christ. It was at the end of the evening and I asked if I could ask her a personal question, she agreed, I asked. Won't go into detail, but her answer concerns me. In some ways I told her I was pleased - she stated that this is not an easy decision for her. I told her that was better than a hasty "I believe" when you really don't. It concerned me very much that she hedged all around the question - do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died to pay the penalty for your sin? That one made her very, very uncomfortable - squirm-y even. And that saddens me oh, so very, very much. She gave several excuses as to why she won't take communion IF she does believe - excuses for which answers have been given over and over and over again. And if she is not a true Believer, I am so glad she does NOT take communion!! So I will pray for her, even more. We've all known her and worked with her for over 13 years. But my heart is sad tonight. She told me it was easy for me to believe because I've been a Christian for almost 50 years. I found that an interesting statement in a number of ways. Gives me food for thought, trying to figure out her reaction and the rest of the conversation. When we're just talking in conversations, she sounds like a true Believer in Jesus Christ. But "something" is missing - is it the Holy Spirit in her life? Or is it courage to come forth? Or is it something else I have no clue over at all?

Time is short. You don't know when your last breathe will be taken. I will be focusing on her in prayer over the next few days and we'll see what happens.

My tutor, who gave a testimony and joined the church years ago, quit going when we had a situation with the then pastor, and she now says "Ukraine has her own church." So, my heart is heavy on two sides tonight. Every time I bring the subject up with her now, she gets real sleepy (she often is sleepy when she's teaching me Russian - I think it's self-defense for what she's hearing!! :) :) ) and can barely keep the conversation going. There is a real spiritual battle going with her. I have many questions as to what to say and what to do - - but I know I must pray for her, that the Holy Spirit will open her heart and draw her to Christ. She is such a "good person" that most people would never think she was in danger of hell.

Actually, she is the one who has kind of spurred me on tonight. The best friend of one of her friends suddenly died last week, at 61. The woman was very healthy, energetic and so forth, but went in to the hospital for a 'female procedure' and died from 'a blood clot'. My tutor was in shock over it. Maybe this is what is needed to wake her up? I don't know. I will continue praying.

Yet even after all this, I feel so much better than when I wrote earlier today. Amazing how that works. Maybe someone read that post and prayed for me? I may never know who you were, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I also wonder, was my conversation later in the evening the reason I was in such a funk earlier in the day? The older I get, the more I realize what a spiritual battle we are in and that all things are connected. ALL things.

Peace and Calm

Against you,
you only,
have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken
and
contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

I have spent much of the last 8 months listening to sermons and listening to the Bible on CD. I listened to 81 sermons by Art Azurdia on the book of Revelation. I listened to his sermons from John, chapters 14-17, and to his sermon series on the book of Hebrews. I listened to several of John MacArthur's sermons on the book of Revelation (but mostly they made me feel very uncomfortable, like - I don't think I am in agreement with this man!). I have listened to several of D.A. Carson's sermons. I've listened to Bible audio - the Gospels, Acts, Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, Revelation, Genesis, Exodus, most of Ezekiel and more. Some of the books, like Jude, I listened to several times.

And it is good. Very good. I will continue to listen to sermons and to Bible audio whenever I get a chance.

And somehow, it is changing me. From all that has happened in the past 3 days, and my reactions to it, I can see huge changes in myself. And this is good.

I came back to Ukraine this time very wounded from a family issue in the States. We were supposed to come back a year ago May and couldn't due to finances. We stayed in the States until the last week of December. And in those following months, actually, if I remember correctly, it was also the month of August! the events happened that so shook me, personally, emotionally, spiritually. Discord between family members that will have lasting effect to the end of my life.

So, I came back wounded instead of strong. I came back vulnerable. Angry. Hurt. Tired deep in my soul. Wanting to retreat into a private world where no one could hurt me again. Where I could never hurt anyone as I had been hurt.

God does not leave us in these times. No, He gives us times of rest and recooperation, but until death closes our eyes and we go to join Him eternally in heaven, these times are only temporary.

And then the difficult part of our sancification begins again. Ratcheted up a notch. In fact, I can look back over my 50 years of being a child of God and see this progression clearly. As I grew physically, God grew me spiritually. As I matured emotionally, God grew me spiritually. As my body has changed and aged, God has continued to grow me spiritually. It will never end, until I reach those 'pearly gates' because I will never, on this earth, be perfect. I will never, on this earth and in this life, be sinless. God will continue to sanctify me until the day I draw my last breath.

It is not easy. It is not simple. It is not pain-free.

I learn, I grow. I stumble, I sin. I repent, I learn, I grow. I sin. And all the while God is working. In me. In those around me. In me. In my husband through me. In my friends through me. In my team mates through me. In the Church through me.

What God is doing in my life effects not just me, but those around me. When I sin - others are effected and affected. When God disciplines me, others are also affected - by what He does, by my reactions, and so forth.

One thing I have learned, in these 50 years of being His child, is that everything that happens in my life, in my soul, has an affect/effect on those around me. And God uses that in their lives as well as in my own.

I am not a profound thinker. I am not a beautiful writer. I am only simple 'me' and must express it in my simple words. The happenings of the past 3 days have changed me, are changing the other person involved, affecting several people around us, and farther away from us, in ways neither of us could begin to understand would happen, and in some way because of that, it will also affect and cause some kind of effect on the Church.

This is frightening in some ways because sin was involved on both sides. Sin always has an effect. And consequences. And a price. Always.

How thankful I am that God is sovereign, that He uses all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. How thankful I am that he can turn mourning into shouts of joy. How thankful I am that He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death (even death of our self-righteousness!). How thankful I am that He makes us see the idols in our lives, even when we fight so hard to ignore them, or cling so desperately to them.

How thankful I am that I am a child of God.

So, what has happened is not yet over and may not be over for quite some time. It is out of 'our' hands now. Like a pebble thrown into the still waters of a pond, the results of my inaction and the other's action ripple out, farther and farther away from us. I wonder - how far will it go? Will the ripples crash upon the shore, or will the Father step in and in His loving kindness to all of us, calm the ripples, bring peace and through that peace, greater strength to all involved? Or, in the deep, unfathomable purposes of God, will things appear to get worse for a time?

Only time will tell.

But God knows.

And I must trust - and rest - in that.

I marvel at the peace I feel deep inside. Myself just a few years ago would be screaming and demanding "my justice!" and making excuses for myself right and left and throwing blame around like a lid-less blender throws pureed fruit around the kitchen (ask me how I know this! :) ). But instead, a sense of calmness and wellness and wholeness exists.

Thank you, Father in heaven! Thank you.

Yesterday

Yesterday was an interesting day. It was a tough day. It was a day I don't want to live over, ever again.

I woke up early, very early - 5:45-6:00am early! And I wondered - should I get up? And as I lay there wondering, I heard as distinctly as I now hear Mel moving about in the livingroom, I heard God say to me: "Spend a little time with Me. Pray for the service at church today." I kind of curled myself up around my pillow and I prayed. I prayed for several minutes - for Mel (who was preaching), for the congregation, for God's Holy Spirit to open hearts and minds and for people's hearts to respond. And then I prayed for the Sunday School. It was a wonderful time of prayer, of feeling a warmth of the presence of God that I have not felt for awhile. How very, very thankful I am for that time. It sustained me through the rest of the day.

The church service was, well, shall we say "noisy"? One woman brought her grandson (I think he was her grandson!) and the child was totally out of control. About 5 years old or so and totally undisciplined. He talked right out loud, pulled his grandmother outside and back inside, and more. Then there were the two little tiny guys who clattered all around the back part of the church, running here and there, shoes making the most delightful sounds on the tile floor (they are somewhere around 18 months-2.5 years old). And the little girl who wanted to rattle her papers and also loves to clop, clop, clop around with her sandals on the tile floor (her papa disciplines her, tho - so she was soon sitting quietly, or at least quieter).

Now, all of these noises are not bad - they are good, in that they show we have little kids in church. And we are thankful for that. And the noise does not bother Mel a bit when he's preaching. In fact, he doesn't even hear them!

What is not good is that it does bother people in the congregation, especially the elderly who already have a hard time hearing, or those who are easily distracted.

To top it off, Mel started his sermon by saying that it was going to be a technical, theological sermon and people needed to think.

I wonder - did they? Did they think? Or were they so distracted they couldn't think about much of anything he was saying and instead focused on all the activity going on around them?

It's hard to tell. People have their televisions or radios blaring all the time. They are so used to noise, cell phones ringing out their melodies and strange sounds, cars and buses and trolleys going by on the main streets, conversations, dogs barking, and so forth and so on. Maybe it didn't bother them.

But I felt the war going on. I felt it big time. I was looking for it, due to my time of prayer in the morning, so maybe I was just extra sensitive - but there was a spiritual battle raging in church yesterday morning. I told Mel later that if the veil between our world and the spiritual world had been just a wee bit thinner, I think we would have heard the swords clashing, shouts, and grunts and even little whispers in people's ears.

After it was all over, and I was downstairs for the first time in a very long time, someone came up and totally broadsided me. Totally unexpected. Totally inappropriate place to do it. Words that were cruel and cutting. I realized quickly that I had some blame in what was going on and I apologized at least 4 times, but still it came, spewing out at me, cutting me to the quick in a couple places. I lost it. Anger flared, I bit my tongue to keep back even harsher words than I had already replied, and I left. The problem with words is that once they are out of your mouth, you cannot retrieve them. Never. And I so did NOT want to say anything I would regret for the rest of my life.

I left. Went upstairs, picked up purse and Bible, asked a friend to tell Mel where I had gone, and I left.

There are rammifications for what happened yesterday that remain to be seen. I don't know what the outcome will be. I only know - I am so thankful for those few precious moments in prayer yesterday morning, when I heard my Father's voice, curled up in the warmth of His love and care, and poured out my heart and hopes to Him.

In a way, I should have been prepared for the spiritual, emotional and personal attack on my own self that happened later in the day. Satan's goal is to defeat us, to keep us out of fellowship with God, out of fellowship with our Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Satan and/or his demons were angry and out to destroy.

I only know that I seriously pray no one else heard what was said, by either one of us. That no one else even heard the angry voices. That no one else noticed the angry faces.

Was Satan given a foothold? Will there be lasting damage within the church? Was someone who is seeking the Truth turned away from the Truth by what they may have seen and heard? I do not know. I can only pray.

I was so happy this afternoon, now more than 24 hours later, to find this blog post. Written by Scotty Smith, on The Gospel Coalition blogs website.
A Prayer about the Power and God of Hope

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope Romans 15:13

And hope does not disappoint us (NIV, or “shame us” ESV), because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:5

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. Hebrews 6:19-20

Gracious Father, I begin this day while the dew of heaven is fresh—the dew of hope. I’d love a downpour of hope, but as long hope comes from you, a dew-size portion is enough. It’s not that disappointing and painful events of recent days have changed significantly. It’s that you haven’t changed and you never will change. You are the God of hope, not just the giver of hope, and the hope you give will never disappoint us or shame us.

Hope will not disappoint us because you will not disappoint us. You will certainly humble us, but you will not let us down or fail us. You don’t promise to work on our timeline or as we would script things, and you certainly don’t promise to give us an un-do or a re-do. But you do promise us that we will not be disappointed in how you choose to work in all things for your glory and the good of your people. We believe, help our unbelief. Give us patient hope.

Hope will not shame us because you will not shame us. Jesus has born the full weight and freight of our sin. We don’t have guileless hearts before one another yet, but we do have guiltless hearts before you, and that’s what matters the most. You now pour the love we don’t deserve into our hearts because you poured the judgment we do deserve onto Jesus.

We don’t have to hold back or hold out on anything. Whatever you bring to light in our lives is for our healing, not our harming; for our freedom, not our flogging; for our sanctification, not our humiliation. We believe, help our unbelief. Give us courageous hope.

How we praise you that the hope you give us is an anchor for our souls, firmly securing us when we find ourselves on threatening seas or in shifting tides. Indeed, we are anchored to a throne of grace; not to the injustice of circumstances; not to the whims and whisperings of men, not to the sins of our past or the uncertainty of our future. We believe, help our unbelief. Grant us bold hope. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ tender and trustworthy name.

Categories: Prayer

Tags: courageous hope, hope, the anchor of hope, the God of hope

Grapevine Perspective

There are so many ways to look at things in life. You can get so involved in the details

that you don't see the bigger picture.

Or you can look at the bigger picture and miss the details, or, for that matter, miss the whole picture.

It all depends on how you look at life and where your focus is.

News and Reactions

I just read an article and I can't help it. I'm trembling inside, and maybe even on the outside as well. I begin to understand the verses that talk about people's legs turning to water in fear.

Every hand will go limp,
and every knee will become as weak as water.
Ezekiel 7:17
I read America's Last Call, by David Wilkerson yesterday (took me two days to read it, actually, and you can only read it for free on the internet - you can't download it, to read otherwise, you must buy a copy). Then today I read The Worst Mississippi River Flood Ever, in The Economic Collapse blog. These two are both written by Christian men, although the second one is not a "Christian" blog, as I understand it.

Maybe I read too much. Maybe if I stuck my head in the sand like so many other people I know, I wouldn't have 'knees weak as water' right now.

Actually, I cannot do that. It is stupid to stick your head in the sand, to not know the times in which you live, to not be ready in as much as any one can be ready for what is coming.

I truly pray that there is a rapture of the Church before the Great Tribulation begins. We are so close... so very, very close.

And the days are flying by at an amazing rate of speed. It is already the 7th of May! The year will soon be half over, and then we'll turn around and it will be 2012. Times doesn't just fly - it speeds by like an ultra-sonic jet.

So, I continue to read, to think, to pray, to understand the times.

What disturbs me now is that I feel so unready for all of this. I want it to be just a few more years off in the future. I look at my spiritual state and in some ways I'm terrified. I see so much sin in my life, 'besetting sins' that I fight against, give in to, cry over, repent of and then the battle begins again. I wonder, can a truly born again person have this continual battle over the same sins, over and over and over again? Am I really one of God's chosen, one of His elect saints? Or am I deceiving myself and the sin I cannot conquer, cannot get rid of in my life is proof that I am none of His? Oh, how that terrifies my heart! I quake inside at the thought of the judgement that is to come from God Almighty on the unrepentant and I pray, Pray! that He will have mercy on my soul.

I told Mel not long ago that I wish I had died several years ago when I was still full of confidence in my relationship with God, that I had no doubts at all over the state of my soul. When I did not struggle as I struggle now with these sins, was in fact, unaware of many of them. Life was so much simpler then! And I was so confident in my salvation, in my relationship with God.

I know in my head, and I know in my heart, that I have received the mercy of Jesus Christ's blood shed on the cross for me, that it washes away my sin, makes me white as snow, that when God looks at me He sees the work of His Son and not unregenerate me. Yet...yet! I am aware of that sin and I am aware of the times when I say - "I'm tired of trying! I'm tired of fighting it! I'll give in right now and repent again later." And I wonder ... could a true born again Believer really do that?? What of this willful sin? Is it proof that I am not who I think I am? Has my life, my confidence all been a lie all this time?

Oh, the turmoil inside sometimes is almost overwhelming!

There are times when I want to curl up in a little ball (little - ha!) in the corner of a dark room, with my hands over my head and just sleep. There are other times when I never want to read another article, another news story, another blog as long as I live. There are times when I want to just do what I want to do and let the rest of the world go to hell in a hand basket (as my mother used to say).

But, I cannot do any of that. Tomorrow I will stand up in front of a dozen or two kids and teach that that Jesus promised his disciples that he would pray for them, and by extension - us. And that means me. I am a part of that 'us' if I am truly born again.

And I feel a sense of peace come over me as I think about it - that I have a great High Priest in heaven, standing before the Father, pleading my case, making intercession for me, that I do not stand alone.

Way back when I was pregnant and getting ready to deliver, I went through classes that taught us how to breathe and use our minds to help control the pain. We were supposed to make ourselves a warm beach to lie on and imagine ourselves there. Well, in a way, that is what I do now - only I don't make it up.

I "see" Christ standing there before the throne of God, interceeding for me, telling his Father that I am one of God's chosen, washed in the blood of the Lamb, dressed in white linen, purified. I focus on Christ - I see no face, just the form of a man with the marks of crucifixion on his head and hands and feet. And something inside me
relaxes

and calms

and I want to weep

in joy
and sadness
and release
and longing.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Two "Must Read" Blog Posts

The ME Congregation, In Defense of the Faith, Wednesday, April 27, 2011, by Wendy Wippel

Porn and Paper Pastors, Pyromaniacs, 21 April 2011, by Dan Phillips

The second article reminded me of something that happened to Mel and me while we were on a mini-vacation in Yalta, way back in early 2000. We were watching tv in our room due to the rain pouring down outside. We came across TBN and watched it for a little bit. Maybe I've written about this before? I don't remember. Anyway, the next channel was an MTV knock-off channel. There are a lot of those here. Later that evening, we turned the tv on again and again just flipped through channels. There was TBN with Jan Crouch walking around a stage all dolled up in a very short skirt, very high heels, long painted fingernails, face painted and hair poofed, her shouting about the devils and saying over and over again "Ha ha, Devil!" We were totally disgusted, especially when we realized that we were so close to Turkey and this is what kind of "Christian" programming they were getting. Made us sick. Mel clicked to the next channel and it was 'soft' porn, which is actually just plain porn. The MTV knock-off had switched to their evening programming. We were shocked, not expecting that at all. Mel switched back to TBN and I made the comment, "Which is better? 'Christian porn' or secular porn?" Both channels were equally as bad. Within Christianity, the Church goes after one exciting thing after another, and when the new one gets old and boring, the Bride of Christ just finds something else to titilate her senses. From speaking in tongues, to being slain by the spirit, to laughing or barking uncontrollably, to The Shack - one thing after another, each more disgusting than the last. I see no difference between the two, 'Christian porn' and secular porn - both appeal to our senses and drag us down into filthiness of the worst kind.

Anyway, off the soapbox now. I liked the first article for almost the same reasons as I like the second. The author has hit the nail on the head with our self-help generation and how we approach the Scriptures. I've been trying to teach Sunday School this way - telling the Bible stories from both the Old AND the New Testaments as they were meant to be told: all pointing to Jesus Christ!! Although we call them the Heroes of the Bible, David, Moses, Elijah and all the rest were just sinful men used by God and their lives each, in some way, point us to Christ. Each story points us to the cross. (Each story is TRUE, not fiction - I use the term 'story' like I would in 'the story of my life'.)

Thoughts on Sarah

Last night, after Ira and little Sasha went home, I got out my blanket again and started working on it. And I thought, 'I should listen to some audio Bible while I work.' (How can I call that 'work'? It's not work - it's a labor of love, er... a joy to play/rest(?)/create!! on. Create - that's a better word.) '....while I create.'

I'd already listened to a sermon or two from Hebrews at various times during the day. Sometimes the listening gets broken up into segments, which is really nice, especially since you can't click on the pause button when you're listening to your husband or the preacher preach. *grin* I had listended to the sermons in Hebrews 11 on Abraham. And I thought to myself - Genesis! I want to listen to Genesis.

I discovered that if I want to start somewhere not at the beginning of a book, I have to download the mp3 file onto my computer, then open the file, highlight the chapter I want to start at and then click the Play All button at the top of the screen. I did all that, starting at chapter 9.

Sometimes you notice more in a passage when you read it after you've heard it preached!

I listened all the way through to, hmmmm - where did I stop? Don't remember the chapter number because I never saw it, just heard it while I was creating. It was during the "This is all your fault, Abraham, that I gave you my maid servant to have sex with so I could become a surrogat mother and now she's thumbing her nose at me" part. I think. It was late by then, well after midnight and I was tired. (Fortunately I was not tied, which is what I typed first and had to correct. With my eyesight, thread and needle in hand, and at that hour, I easily could have indeed been 'tied' as well as tired.)

Listening to the passage, after the sermons earlier, brought lots of non-Biblically answered questions to mind.
- I wonder what the valley looked like before God rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah? The passage said it was green and well-watered. It must have been beautiful! Look at photos of the area now - not quite so green and beautiful.
- The preacher I listened to earlier said Sarah was a bitter and unhappy woman, even though in Peter she is not mentioned that way (his words, paraphrased). I have never understood why people think she was a bitter and unhappy woman. I hated the book, The Red Tent (I think that was the one) where she was also cast in an terrible light. The preacher also said that nowhere in scripture do we learn that Sarah was a Believer. We simply do not know.

I admit - I was shocked. In fact, if I'd heard this sermon first or second of all the sermons I've listened to, I probably would not listen to this man again. It sounded to me like he had a thing against women. Actually, he doesn't, from his other sermons - but I still do NOT like what he said about Sarah. (Maybe I should listen to that sermon again and make sure of what he said....)

Why do people pick on Sarah? I don't get it! Have they never thought about what life was like for her? I think she was a remarkable woman - traipsing around all over the desert with her husband, living in tents
after living in what was probably a pretty wonderful home with a foundation in Ur and Haran, being lied about by her husband - practically handed on a silver platter to Pharoahs TWICE so they could make her their wife and put her in a harem (think 'prison') to use her whenever the urge came over them again, going through her whole life with people thinking of her negatively because she had no children, and so forth and so on. I think people who call Sarah "bitter" have never really thought about what life was like for her. What was she supposed to do? Smile sweetly and submit without ever thinking or feeling or desiring to be a mother? Get real!! She did submit to her husband - and look what it got her - nice accommadations in Pharoah's palace with a view toward his bed. Ei yi yi. Would I ever trust my husband again if he even thought about doing that ONE time?? It may not be completely real, but I prefer to think of Abraham and Sarah like the artist did in the painting above.

Actually, I am rather incensed by it all. And then - the writer of Hebrews talks about how wonderful her husband was and only makes one positive statement about her faith (and that only in context of having a kid) and people assume she was "bitter". I'd laugh, too, if someone told me I was going to have a baby now and I'm only 57, not almost 90. Did God talk to her like He did to Abraham? Questions, questions. Sometimes I think we make too big of assumptions about things we really don't know or understand. Even my questions are based on what life is like now, and for me. How can we truly know and understand the motives of someone unless it is spelled out specifically. This is a case where I wish the Bible said more.

Well, I have more questions and more thoughts on the passages about Abraham and Sarah and Lot (hmmm - now that I think of Lot, I think that's where I stopped last night - at that passage that was so hard to teach in Junior Church when I was going through the Bible chapter by chapter, story by story with the kids. How can you leave out a whole section of scripture if you're teaching the whole scripture? But how do you teach that to a group of kids? VERY carefully and by asking the parents first and explaining how you're going to teach it. I think I did ok - there were no complaints and I did get the point of the chapter across. I think.)

For now, the blanket is calling me, and in a couple hours Nina will be here and a new adventure will begin.

Who Would I Have Been?

Sometimes I wonder what I would have been like if I'd been born 100, 200 or more years ago. I just skimmed through an article on the influences of nuture and nature on kids, and how it plays out in determining their intelligence. And it made me wonder - if I'd been born 100 years ago - would I still have had my basic personality?

I know that I have an unusual personality. "The ISTP personality type is much more common among men than women. Among men, it is the third most common type in the population. Among women, it is the fourth rarest. ISTPs make up:

■8% of the general population
■9% of men
■2% of women"

Hmmm - makes me wonder what the other "rare" female personality types are. I'll look that up later. :-)

I've often thought that if I'd been raised in a different home, where I'd been given more freedom to be and do whatever I wanted to do, instead of following the rules, that today I'd be much more involved in more adventurous and/or dangerous things. Instead, I tend to "get my kicks" from reading about it.

I've also thought that if I had had normal eyesight as a child, I would have been more involved in sports and other activities. My parents didn't discover that I was almost blind until I was in 2nd grade. I'd been moved to the very front row of the classroom and I still couldn't see the blackboard. That's when the school recommended that I have my eyes checked. Everything I remember from my young childhood is kind of "foggy" and very limited to what was directly around me, and everything else is just gray. I wonder if that is part of the reason I do not like gray days like yesterday and today? I want to be able to see, and to see clearly, which is rather interesting since I no longer see clearly in either eye at all - sometimes I have to look around things instead of directly at them to see them (I have a lot of floaters, sigh) and only things in bright light are ever completely in focus - which when I think about it, makes me depressed, so I'm not going to think about it. Makes for interesting cross stitching, tho. Where do I insert the needle? What in the world did I do THAT for last night? HOW did I do that??? HA HA!

Even after I got my glasses and could see, for the first time ever, leaves on a tree and Pikes Peak in the distance, I still had a hard time telling how far away and how fast a ball was coming at me. I hated playing baseball especially. I excelled in things like reading, holding the book up to my nose of course!, and embroidery, again holding the hoop and needle up to my nose so I could see what I was doing even after I had glasses (glasses were also good for keeping the needle out of my eye as I pulled the thread up), sitting in a stuffed chair sideways, legs dangling over the arm, for hours on end if I didn't get chased outside "to play". Outside I loved spending what seemed like hours, examining the insides of flower blossoms, the world between grass blades, the activity of the bugs there, and the way sunlight cast shadows around me (I discovered that grasshoppers have the most amazingly beautiful wings when you gently spread them out to look at them, and they can kick really hard, too).

If I'd have been born 100 years earlier, I probably wouldn't have had bad eyesight (they gave me oxygen at birth which caused severe myopia) - I might have been dead instead, since I was born breech. :-) But if I'd survived and not been mentally handicapped by the difficult birth and my mother had survived it, I most likely would have had perfect eyesight like my siblings and then... would I have had the same personality? Or maybe I'd have had the same personality, just expressed it differently?

That is a lot of if's and maybe's and possibly's. haha

I realized at dinner with my team mates on Monday night, that I can talk about volcanoes and earthquakes till the cows come home. I actually apologized, but they assured me it was all quite interesting. oh. my. gosh. (inner hysterical laughter) And usually I can converse on just about every subject brought up - because I read so widely and all the time. And sometimes I just get disgusted with myself and wish I'd listen more and talk less.

Oh well.

But if I'd been born 100 years ago - would I still have been this way? Would I be fascinated with the stars? Interested in how the lye and fat change to make soap in my cauldron over the fire, watching in fascination as I stirred it round and round? Would I love the feel of the wool running through my fingers as I spun yarn or thread, rejoiced in the feel and visual impact of the cloth as I wove it? Been interested in what different recipes I could make out of hunk of meat, and handful or wheat or corn and a mess of greens? Would I have watched the stars at night and the cloud formations by day - and marveled at what God had made?

Or would I have been too exhausted to care? Too overwhelmed, under nourished, burdened by the work that never ended? Would I have been me then, or a totally unrecognizable person?

Of course, I'll never have an answer to that question, and in a way I wonder why I find it interesting at all - but I do. I am a product of the times in which we live - and yet, I am me genetically and no one can change that.

Something else to ponder. Think I'll go work on the blanket I'm cross stitching and listen to another sermon on the book of Hebrews (we're in Hebrews 11 - one of my favorite chapters - I love all the stories of people told there).

Bye for now.

It is a bright, sunny, blue sky kind of day. Beautiful outside. The wind is blowing, a fairly stiff breeze right now. Mel went to the store and I am here alone at the moment, balcony door wide open, listening to Galena Downstairs talk from her balcony to someone on the street. Dogs are barking, I can hear the heavy traffic from on the other side of our building and the washer in working away in the kitchen. Everything is "normal".

So, tell me - why do I have this overwhelming, at times, feeling of dread?

I am waiting.

Expectant.

Wondering.

What is going to happen next?

This feeling actually started 3 or 4 days ago. I went to bed the other night expecting to see in the morning that there had been another big earthquake somewhere in the world. In fact, over the next day, there were several 6.0 and above quakes in various parts of the world, but mostly, of course, in Japan. I'm still waiting for another big one. I really do think it's going to happen. I even dreamed about it.

Last night, just before we went to bed, FoxNews posted an article on George Soros and what he is doing right now. Why Are the Media Ignoring Plans By George Soros to Remake the Entire Global Economy? Not something you want to read just before you go to sleep. I had nightmares off and on all night, and I usually do not have bad dreams. These dreams actually had to do with the Union Printers' Home in Colorado Springs - a place I grew up near. Unsettling dreams, uncomfortable dreams, scary dreams of a place I have never been inside and have really paid no attention to since I was, what? 15 years old?? Somehow it was all tied to Soros. But back to Soros himself, I told Mel this morning as we were discussing what is going on, that I believe this man is controlled by something outside of this world, and I'm NOT talking about space aliens! God is controlling him, but in that, it is very possible that God has given him over to Satan for Satan to use during these last days.

In writing all of that above, with his power today, I wonder if these words will come to him or to someone high in his organization? It is probable - the internet is wide-open for any one to read. Therefore, George Soros, you need to confess your sin, repent and ask Jesus Christ to forgive you and save you. Now. Before it is too late. That time is coming very soon. Christ is returning very soon to judge the inhabitants of the earth, both the living and those who have already died!

It has been a while since I've read in the main stream media about mass animal deaths. That is part of the reason I read that other website I wrote about a day or two ago. The mass animal deaths have not stopped. Just this morning there are two more reports about fish kills. They are labeled as being "natural" due to fish not getting enough oxygen due to ... fill in the blank. Birds are dying, fish are dying, porposes and dolphins are dying. The sea and the sky creatures are dying in unusual numbers. And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. Genesis 1:20-23
The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Revelation 8:8,9

Sometimes I feel like we are experiencing a mini-tribulation period, like God is giving us a taste of what is to come. But is anyone listening? Is anyone paying attention?

Actually, I have wondered recently if we are actually in the Tribulation period and it only seems to us that things are not all that bad. Maybe things really are that bad and we just are not aware of it yet? With the tsunami destroying boats and ships, as well as houses and other buildings on land, with the reactor in Japan spewing out radiation in the air, on land and sea, with Chernobyl still hot and a very real and present danger to the world ... The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water — the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.Revelation 8:10,11

Last summer huge swathes of the world burned - Alaska, Russia, the US. Actually, over the past few years even more has burned - Australia, Greece, other parts of Europe. Add it all together and a large percent of the earth's surface has burned in the past 10 years or less. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. Revelation 8:7

I no longer believe in a literal seven year tribulation, but rather in a perfect time period of tribulation.

What is happening in the Middle East? Every day we hear of more unrest, more people killed, more violence. Some of it is unimaginable. And what of the violence and horror that has happened in the past 100 years? Nazi Germany killing people and doing experiements on humans that are unbelievable in their horror. People doing that to other people. And recently I listened to a sermon by a young man who talked about what the Japanese did to his Korean people, as well as Chinese and other nationalities in that part of the world, before and during World War II. The reports are that their experiments on living human beings of ALL ages, including newborn babies - those experiments made Nazi German experiments throw-up when they toured the facilities. I was totally sickened myself, and I have no idea what those experiments were, nor do I want to know. I know enough of what the Nazi's did from all the reading I did when I was in high school (including QB VII, by Leon Uris - I've never forgotten that book).

I know that God is not finished with the country of Israel yet. I do not believe the Dispensational point of view exactly, nor do I believe that there is any way for Israel to be saved other than belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. But God is still working in that country, in those people. I have a feeling that things are literally going to explode there very soon. And it is going to be horrible and amazing at the same time.

So, today I write out some of these things, trying to get a mental handle on it all. I wonder, too, about all of the UFO stuff going on all over the world still. People are still seeing strange lights and crafts in the air, both during the day and at night. Some is faked, much is real. Unexplained. Unknown. But we live not just in this physical world that we can see, touch, taste, hear - but we also live in a spiritual world and there is a spiritual battle raging all around us. As the time draws near for Christ to return, and all that accompanies that time, I believe that unseen spiritual battle is going to become more and more seen. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked.
“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
And Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. II Kings 6:15-17 How thankful I am that God has assured us "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them". We can rest in that.

So, the feeling of dread is still there. The feeling of waiting. Of anticipation. Expectation. Waiting.

And while I wait
and watch
and listen
and think

I must do.
Do what God has called me to do. Read His word, pray, listen for His voice, do the things my hands find to do, and do them with all my might.

Therefore, I really need to go check the washer and give the dial a bump (cold wash) and finish cleaning the flat and getting it ready for company tonight. Valentina and Lyena are coming over simple so Lyena can ask Mel questions. Questions she has from her Bible reading, from what is happening in the world around us, from her thinking deep, deep thoughts. Maybe I'll also have time to go over and see Ira, maybe not - the day is flying by.

Calendar on the Wall

The other day I came in from outside, took a step into the livingroom and took off my boots. Because our entrance hall is so small, Mel keeps his shoes out there and I keep mine in the livingroom, beside the bench.

I bent over, unzipped my boots, slipped them off and then glanced up at the wall. There, above my head, is a calendar that I bought while we were in the States. This is the photo that I saw for the month of February:

Wow. Double wow. How many times I have looked at that photo and not seen what is there?

Glancing up, I was almost in shock. All I could think was:
Isaiah 40
21 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

Psalm 99
1 The LORD reigns,
let the nations tremble;
he sits enthroned between the cherubim,
let the earth shake.
2 Great is the LORD in Zion;
he is exalted over all the nations.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name—
he is holy.

Now, I know in my head that this is NOT a picture of God, or of the Lord Jesus Christ, sitting up there in space, ruling over everything. No, this is just a photo of part of the Orion Nebula. The calendar tells me it is part of the LL Orionis. Astronomy Picture of the Day tells me:

LL Ori and the Orion Nebula
Explanation: This esthetic close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds features LL Orionis, interacting with the Orion Nebula flow. Adrift in Orion's stellar nursery and still in its formative years, variable star LL Orionis produces a wind more energetic than the wind from our own middle-aged Sun. As the fast stellar wind runs into slow moving gas a shock front is formed, analogous to the bow wave of a boat moving through water or a plane traveling at supersonic speed. The small, arcing, graceful structure just above and left of center is LL Ori's cosmic bow shock, measuring about half a light-year across. The slower gas is flowing away from the Orion Nebula's hot central star cluster, the Trapezium, located off the upper left corner of the picture. In three dimensions, LL Ori's wrap-around shock front is shaped like a bowl that appears brightest when viewed along the "bottom" edge. The beautiful picture is part of a large mosaic view of the complex stellar nursery in Orion, filled with a myriad of fluid shapes associated with star formation.

Now, every time I look at that calendar, I see the shape of person sitting there on the left. Like a reminder of the Creator, NOT an image of the creator, just a reminder of how big He is and how teeny tiny we are. A reminder that He sits enthroned above all, including this nebula. That He could 'unbuckle Orion's belt' if he wanted to do so, while we have just barely learned to look more indepth at said belt.

God speaks to Job:
Job 38
31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

Difficult Praying

Prayer. Mel and I were talking about prayer this morning while I was working on my latest woven scarf. I have a feeling that I don't have the same view of praying that many other people have. I've written here before that it bothers me that so often we pray that God will make someone we care about well, or the friend or relative of someone we know, or someone we heard about on tv or the news, and on it goes. It's like it's become God's job: to make people well. Like we boss Him around and tell Him what to do.

There is another issue that is bothering me right now, too, about how we sometimes pray.

I want very much for both of my sons to marry, and to marry well. To have happy marriages. To have Godly wives. To raise Godly children. To be content in that aspect of life.

But...

Neither one of them are married at this point. So - how should I pray?

I already pray for their future spouses in general ways. But that is future. This is now.

I listened to someone pray the other day and again heard the phrase - bring Godly spouses for the singles in our church. And I thought - wait a minute! What if they are destined to never marry? Then what? Do we keep praying that God will bring Godly spouses simply because underneath everything we think and say about "God's will for our lives", we truly believe that unless we are married, we have a second rate life? Ei yi yi. How horrible! I've known too many happily single people to ever believe that is true. Older single people who have wonderful lives, busy, adventurous, fruitful in ministries, happy. Yet, if all we ever pray for them is an order for God to bring them spouses and then they can have Godly children, we are in essence saying that God has given them second best and we know what is better for them than He does. I've known too many unhappily married people to think marriage is always the best for everyone.

Why don't we pray that God will make our singles content where they are for the time period they are in, and if it be God's will, for God to please bring them Godly spouses? If marriage is held up to them as the end all and be all (is that how that phrase is said?), then they will be discontent and lose the blessings God is giving them in their singleness. In unhappiness at being single, they could so easily fall into sexual sin of one kind or another, desperately searching for a spouse.

From now on I am praying - God, please help our singles to be happy and content where they are now in life, and if it will bring more glory to You, please bring them Godly spouses. (And for my sons as well. Make them content where they are, but please bring them Godly wives. :-) ).

I Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

The second thing I've been thinking about is praying for healing. A person we know has been at death's door now for quite some time. It's like she's just hanging there on the edge of death, suffering incredible pain all the while. People pray and ask for God to heal her. I think to myself - if God heals her now, she will only have to go through this whole dying process again! No one lives forever, not even Lazarus did after Jesus raised him from the dead. I do not want to pray that this woman will die - NO!!! That is not my point at all. I have begun praying that God will help her to die well, to die with grace, bringing Him glory throughout the whole process. The funny (not haha kind of funny) thing is - now it looks like she may have treatments of some kind that could maybe bring her back to some sort of better health. I think to myself - so close to Paradise, and snatched away, only to look forward to the dying process all over again.

Would I want to do that? Am I so afraid of dying, something that we ALL must go through, that I am willing to go through all of whatever it is before the actual step across the threshold, all of that over again? The pain, the suffering? Is living better than what is ahead of me? Or is it just the fear of the unknown that would cause me to cling to physical life with every ounce of strength and every known healing practice?

I don't know. I pray for her, that whether she lives or dies, she will bring glory to God.

I have come to the point where I don't know how to pray for specific groups of people. Singles. The ill. The dying.

No, I don't know how to pray, other than - Father, what ever brings glory to YOU. And - help us all to submit to your will.

Romans 8:26,27 "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God."

Thoughts While Listening to the Wind Tonight

I kept wondering what that sound was. For the past 3 or 4 hours, well, even before it got dark - what is that sound?? It sounded like a gale force wind to me, but the trees outside the window didn't seem to be moving all that much.

Finally, tonight while Mel was watching a movie, I got off my rear end and went out on the balcony to see if I could hear it outside, not just in here in the office room.

Oh my goodness! My first impression was correct. The wind is blowing at a gale force speed, I'm sure. And somehow, the way it funnels between our apartment building and the 9 story building to the left of us makes the noise even louder. It really does sound like the roaring of waves on the ocean, coming and going, quieter and then much, much louder.

Wind here is weird. Or maybe more correctly, all of these 5 and 9 story buildings are weird. They are concrete so they don't creak and groan when a huge gust hits them. And we are in the exact center of our building - 3rd floor, middle podyezd, therefore we don't hear anything that might be hitting the roof - like hard rain or sleet. It is quiet tonight - except for the coming and going of the roar.

So very unusual.

It just adds to my general feeling of unease tonight. I read the news articles on the coming food shortages in the United States. Frozen crops all across the heartland, the South and way down into Mexico. Prices doubling and tripling overnight.

I've knowns this was going to happen for the past several weeks. It started in other parts of the world. Drought, flood, extreme snowfall, extreme heat, extreme cold. Crops wiped out in Australia, Sri Lanka, China, South Africa, Russian, Ukraine, Vietnam and now in the US and Mexico - all within the past 12 months. Famine is coming.

I was talking to someone the other night and I mentioned this - that I am fairly sure there will be a world-wide famine before the year is over and that I am most concerned for the kids that we know and my grandkids - and the person looked at me, got up and left. I'm not sure if the person was angry at me, shocked by what I'd said, or just decided at that moment that something else needed to be done. Whatever - it was weird. I felt like I wasn't believed at all, but I do not know that for sure. Whatever. I AM concerned about whether there is going to be enough food for my grandchildren to eat and be healthy by the end of this next winter. Very concerned.

Months ago I talked to my mother about this. Told her I thought they should store some flour and other items "just in case". Months ago. I sent an article to her via email through Kara, but I'm not sure she ever read it - just within the last month. It is coming.

I talked to Melinda about it. Reminded her of Joseph and how God had warned him of the famine that was coming and told him what to do. I asked her what she thought we should be doing to help the church and to help those we love and to help our neighbors. She did not have an answer then - neither do I at this time. We are limited in funds, in space, now in time.

If we are, as I truly believe, entering the very last of the Last Days, it will do no good to prepare anyway. God is bringing judgement against the people of this earth.

I am really tired of people, good Christian people, denying that that is what is happening. Jesus Christ PROMISED that He would one day return. He gave us signs of His coming. He told us to look and to watch, to be prepared for His return. Why, as a Church, are we so reluctant to think He might actually do what He said He was going to do??? Do we not want Him to return? Do we love it so much here that we don't want Him to come back? Do we believe it was all a lie?

Oh, how I long for His return! When I see what is happening all around us, when I see the evil that is growing by leaps and bounds every day and month and year... Sit back and think. Stop what you are doing right now, think back to what life was like when you were 10 years old. When you were 21. When you were half the age you are now. What life was like 10 years ago. Can you see the changes? Can you see the growth of evil in our world? Not just "over there" in some foreign land, but in your own home country? How different are the newscasts now, the newspapers/internet news reports now compared to what they were then? When was the first time you saw nudity on television? Sex on tv? The first time you heard profanity? God's name taken in vain on public television for the whole world to hear? When was the first time you realized that homosexuality was becoming an accepted way of life, "normal"? When did you stop caring about how many abortions are performed each year? When was the first time you realized that you were not shocked any more that someone in a position of trust had molested a child, or even several dozen children? When was the first time you read a graphic sex scene in a regular book and didn't think twice about it, just enjoyed it?

When was the last time you heard the news of what is happening around the world and put it together with the signs Jesus said would happen before His return? How many large earthquakes have happened in just the past 2 months?? How many volcanoes are erupting now? How many superstorms have happened in the last year, or even the last 5 years? What about this deep solar minimum we've been in, changes in the sun that affect the earth? What about all of the wars and revolutions and revolts and genocide that is happening all over the world right now? What about all of the murders that have happened along the border of the United States and Mexico in just the last year or two? What about all of the mothers who are killing their children, or the fathers who are killing their whole families? What about the financial crisis that has hit not just the US, but the whole world? ... the list goes on and on and on.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - we are like frogs in pans of water on a stove. The heat is on under us - and we don't even care, we don't see it, we don't want to acknowledge it - we'd rather watch another movie, surf the net some more, party with our friends.

But these are all symptoms of the time in which we live. What distresses me the very most is that I have to be so careful who I talk to about these things. I cannot say to my Christian friends, "Wow! Look at what is happening! I think Jesus is returning soon!" No - if I do that, and I have so I know what happens, I get a blank look, or I am 'corrected' that no one knows the time so we can't say that, or I'm told not to be so afraid all the time, or some other form of 'I think you're crazy, but I'm too polite to tell you so" kind of look or attitude.

How I wish I could talk with someone like that. Not someone who is into conspiracy theories, or weird 2012 stuff, or hide food in a secret underground bunker somewhere out in the woods stuff. But have a conversation with someone who says, yes, I see the signs of the times, too and I am soooo looking forward to heaven, and seeing my Savior face to face and living in perfect joy for eternity. How I long to have a conversation with someone about heaven and what awaits us, and the joy that will be ours, and all of our loved ones we'll see again, and how we will be able to talk to God/Jesus and ask Him all those questions we've wondered about and longed to have answered. How I long to talk to someone about the New Earth and what we may do there, and what it may be like.

Oh, yes, I do talk to Mel about these things. He is very patient with me, and he listens to me and he answers my questions as best he can about these things that we know so little about. I can talk to Mel (thank you, Father in Heaven, for my husband) - I just wish there were others I could talk with, too! WHY can't I talk to every Christian that I know about these things????

So, I listen to the wind tonight. I used to listen to the wind and enjoy it. Now, it is like a sound of warning: Beware! It's going to get very bad before it gets good for the rest of eternity.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Mary

I was listening to the audio Book of John tonight on the computer while I warped my little loom. (I just love saying that - I warped my loom - could say it over and over again!) Listened to the whole book and stayed with it almost the whole time without letting my mind wander. I can't believe how different it is to listen than to read. I 'see' it all happening in my mind.

So, there I am, working away, listening to the Word, and these verses come up:
Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. John 20:10-18

I've listened to the whole book 3 times now and every time we get to this passage, tears spring into my eyes and I want to just cry out with Mary, "Rabboni!"

Jesus knew her name. Jesus called her by name. Can you hear his voice? Gentle, comforting, loving, soft? Two syllables, spoken in his very own voice. Her name. Not "woman". Not "lady". Not "hey you". Not sinner. Not silence. Just "Mary".

How her heart must have lept with
confusion
unbelief
fear
wonder
amazement
belief
but more than anything else - pure, complete joy.

I think about that. He calls the stars each by name. And I know that he knows my name, too. I hear him, calling my name, each time I hear those few verses in John.

And I rejoice. He knows MY name!

Perfection - or Not

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was working on this new scarf last night. When I sat down to work on it, I noticed a mistake about an inch back from where I was at. Oh well, no problem, I said to myself. It's one little mistake and I don't really want to go back that far and fix it. So I continued working on it for about 20 more minutes. But every time I looked at what I'd done, all I could see was this huge glaring mistake I'd made the night before. I finally got up and quit and came in here and read some more news on the internet. Before we went to bed I complained to Mel about this huge glaring mistake I'd made and that I was going to have to go back, now much farther, and fix it in the morning. He told me I was crazy, that he couldn't see it and neither would anyone else. (Well, he didn't actually say I was "crazy", but I got the idea. haha!) I took some photos of the new scarf on the loom and then I went to bed.

This morning I looked at the scarf and I had to really look to find that huge glaring mistake. :-) But now that I see it, I SEE it. I started working back, took out 4 rows, 2 of white and 2 of red. And I thought to myself, what am I doing?? I came in here, downloaded the photos and started looking for that mistake. Oh, it's there all right, but I had to really look for it to find it. Now, that's all I see when I look at the photos. Now I already knew this about myself. It's ok for other people to do imperfect work - but I demand perfection from myself.

I'm sure a lot of people would laugh to hear this. I am not known for my perfect housekeeping (just ask my mother, she'll tell you what a slob I've always been). I'm not known for my perfect way of dressing. I'm not known for being a perfectionist about anything - unless you look in my linen closet (or what serves as a linen closet here in Ukraine) and you will find that all of my towels and washclothes are stacked up perfectly. You could place a ruler in front of them and they'd be folded "at attention" perfect.

I wonder why the rest of my life is not like that...
Well, I know why, really. It takes too much effort to be perfect at everything and I'd rather be living life than perfecting it. Nothing ever stays perfect. I take a towel, or Mel takes a towel, and depending on who takes it, I have to go back in there and straighten it all back up to make it perfect again (don't think I'm talking about Mel! haha!). It will only stay perfect until it's used. The same with this scarf. I can go back and perfect that huge glaring mistake, or I can say to myself, "self, how long did it take you to find that huge glaring mistake after sleeping a few hours? who else is going to go searching for it? what is this scarf going to look like after a few wearings anyway, especially if it ends up on a street kid, street person (not that they don't deserve the best I can offer, I just know how filthy it will be in a matter of a couple hours)?"

So, I'll stop writing this post and go back to the table, sit down, and reweave the 4 rows I took out and go on from there. However! Next time I see a mistake just an inch or so back, I'll fix it immediately!!

I am so glad God is not like this with me!!
Yes, I must be holy as He is holy - but He knew/knows that I cannot be that way on my own and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for my unholiness, my teeny and huge sin. He looks at His Son's holiness, applied to me, and He loves me. He doesn't see my imperfection, He sees His Son's perfection instead.

I am so thankful for that!

Prayer

"I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth."
- James O. Fraser

This was not the quote I was looking for tonight, but it is the quote God wanted me to see. I have struggled for quite some time over why I am here. I won't go into the reasons here on my blog. I'll leave it at the point that I realized today that I do not have a very strong personality.

For several months, maybe even a couple years now, I've felt like God has been calling me to a ministry here in Ukraine of prayer. Not prayer as in "never miss the Tuesday afternoon prayer meeting" or even "get together with a couple other people and pray". No, it is a deeper thing than that, although both of those are very important.

I see things other people do not see. I've been poo-pooed so many times and made to feel ridiculous because of others attitudes that I've just mostly stopped saying what I see and what I think. I'm tired of trying to hold my own against other stronger personalities.

Actually, I'm very tired. Very.

I was weaving the other day and was reminded in my inner spirit to pray for something. So as I sat, pushing the weft threads back and forth, back and forth, pulling the heddle down and beating the threads against each other, praying. The last time I worked on my embroidery I prayed for the person it's intended for and that whole family. I prayed for my grandkids, for my husband, for members of my team, the church, and so forth. And tonight, while listening to a sermon with Mel, weaving back and forth, back and forth, I listened and God spoke in that still, quiet voice.

He is calling me to pray. It is a wider call than here, our church, our team, my family. It is a world-wide call, if that makes sense.

I am interested in what is happening all over the world. I see patterns. I see possible/probable outcomes. And if I don't pray, I can become afraid. Afraid for my family, mostly, for my grandchildren, mostly, because they are not yet Believers. But I am also very concerned for the Church world-wide. Fear is not from God, it is from the Evil One.

So a call to prayer, to a ministry of prayer, to a ministry I cannot do if I'm busy doing other things, other things that I have been kept from doing one way or the other. And that gives me a peace I've never had since we arrived in Kherson.

Along with this tonight, over the past several months I've felt that God is calling me to quietness. I have a quiet voice already and am talked over so often. I lost track years ago of how many times I get part of a thought out of my mouth and the other person(s) take off and jabber over whatever else I was going to say. This has happened so many times that when I am speaking, I often just shut up in the middle of a sentence because no one is listening anyway - they are talking over me. There has been a lot of wounded pride in this over the years. Pain. Anger. Depression. Yet, tonight I am realizing that maybe this is a gift. The gift of quietness. Of silence. Of stillness. Of observation. Of seeing and praying. Truly, I have a sence of peace over this that I have not experienced for a very long time.

"I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been." - Lottie Moon

I am tired. Very tired. But I have my work to do. To meditate on God's Holy Word, to watch, to listen, to pray. And to rest in Him.

Will I never say anything again? Ha! Hardly! I'm sure I'll get some of my opinions out. I just pray that it will not be so important to me any more to "hold my own".

There is a sense of freedom in opening my hands and saying to myself and to God, "This (ministry, opinion, thought, idea, whatever) is not mine to hold on to, to be proud of, to demand it be attended."

"So many missionaries, intent on doing something, forget that His main work is to make something of them..."
Jim Eliot

Butch, Sundance and Painted Wagons

Last night Mel watched a movie we picked up, out of the cheap DVDs box at Walmart I think, sometime while we were home. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

He watched the movie while I listened to it and messed around on the computer. Usually I do cross stitch or weaving, but last night I was too wiped out to take a chance on messing up my handiwork. So, I listened. And then I started looking up info on the 3 characters (including Etta Price, Sundance's wife/mistress). The more I looked the more I was amazed. Then we watched the extras included with this particular DVD. Interviews with Redford, Newman and Katherine Ross. And again, I was amazed.

Amazed at what? you might ask. Well, I'll tell you! (when I get back from checking the washing machine)

Ok, back again.

As I listened to the movie, not watching the good looking movie stars who were portraying each of the characters, I was struck by how bad these guys really were. That's part of the reason I started looking up info on them on the internet. They were robbers, murderers, liars, cheats, immoral, profane. Etta Price may or may not have been married to Sundance and the movie hints at it, but does not come right out and say, that she may have slept with both of them off and on. (Info on the women who went to Robber's Roost indicates that the men there shared their women with each other and one site indicated that she was one of just a small handful of women who ever went to Robbers Roost.) Then when the commentary began, we listened to all of these people involved with the movie talk about what good guys the two outlaws really were, not nearly as bad as others during that time period, or else just two among the others in their actions.

I remember watching this movie in the theater. Don't remember what year it was, that was the time before things came out a couple months later on VHS, of course. I remember how good looking I thought Robert Redford was. Swooon! I remember how brave and daring I thought Etta Price was and how good it made me feel when people told me I looked like Katherine Ross (we had a similar hair style and coloring - she's always been much prettier than me). I knew these guys were bad guys, but hey - give them a break! Maybe they'd just had a rough time and fell into being bad guys kinda by accident. And if you had no chance of marriage and someone offered you a life of adventure, why not do what Etta Price did? (I say "Etta Price" because that is her name in the movie - no one knows for sure what her real name was.)

Last night it really dawned on me that these guys were no better than the Hell's Angels or gang members in todays gangs.

Sometime in the night while I was wide awake instead of sleeping, I remembered the time Mel and I went to see Paint Your Wagon.

Again, a movie I'd seen in the time after I'd left home and before I met Mel, a movie I had really enjoyed at the time. Sure it was "naughty" and sure, it was immoral, but it was a cute movie. Right? [Remember, I was raised in a Christian home where we didn't go to movies - ever - and I'd become a Christian when I was 8 years old and had been baptised soon after.] When I saw it with Mel, after a couple semesters of Bible college, I was shocked and embarassed. Here I'd told him what a good movie it was - and it was just a movie about glorified hookers and polygamy. Ei yi yi. Yet, I am so very, very well aware now that these two movies are very symptomatic of what was happening during the '60's. Cultural revolution, where good is bad and bad is good. These movies were cutting edge at the time - now they are very simple and "cute". When I think of the thousands of movies that have been produced since then, how immorality of all kinds is portrayed as "normal", it all makes me feel a little bit sick.


I still like these songs sung by Lee Marvin I Was Born Under A Wanderin' Star, and The First Thing You Know . There is something in both of these songs that tugs at my heart - maybe that is why I liked the movie so much, when I was still going through all of that teenage angst.
.


I Was Born Under A Wanderin' Star
I was born under a wanderin' star
I was born under a wanderin' star
Wheels are made for rollin', Mules are made to pack
I never seen a sight that didn't look better looking back.

I was born under a wanderin' star
Mud can make you prisoner, And the plains can bake you dry
Snow can burn your eyes, But only people make you cry
Home is made for comin' from, For dreams of goin' to
Which with any luck will never come true

I was born under a wanderin' star
Do I know where hell is? Hell is in Hello
Heaven is good-bye forever, It's time for me to go

I was born under a wanderin' star
A wanderin' wanderin' star

Mud can make you prisoner And the plains can bake you dry
Snow can burn your eyes, But only people make you cry
Home is made for comin' from, For dreams of goin' to
Which with any luck will never come true

I was born under a wanderin' star
When I get to heaven, Tie me to a tree
Or I'll begin to roam, And soon you know where I will be

I was born under a wanderin' star
A wanderin' wanderin' star

The First Thing You Know
God made the mountains, God made the sky
God made the people. God knows why

He fixed up the planet, As best as He could
Then in come the people, And gum it up good

The first thing you know,
They civilized the foothills
And every where He put hills
The mountains and valley below

They come along and take 'em,
And civilize and make 'em
A place where no civilized Person would go

The first thing you know
They civilize what's pretty By puttin' up a city
Where nothin' that's Pretty can grow

They muddy up the winter, And civilize it into a place
Too uncivilized Even for snow

The first thing you know
They civilize left, They civilize right
Till nothing is left, Till nothing is right

They civilize freedom Till no one is free
No one except, By coincidence, me

The first thing you know
The boozer's in prison, And the criminally he isn't
And only the rascals have gone

When I see a parson, I gotta put my arse in
A wagon that follows the tail of a crow

The first thing you know
I pick up 'n and blow!
The first thing you know

We ARE Affected

I just read an article about what is happening in Egypt and then commented to Mel that I am actually more concerned about what is happening in Egypt than by what is happening in Iran and Palestine. Maybe that is because I have been to Egypt, but not to the rest of the Middle East. Well, I've been to Turkey and I'm concerned about what is happening in Turkey, too, so - there you go.

My own little world seems so safe and secure. Sure, they are doing something to the water pipes again somewhere in our podyezd, but even so, the water should come back on again in 20 minutes or a few hours. It's only 66 F in here, but the pipes are at least warm and we have electricity so we can use the little heater if needed. My own little world is safe and secure at the moment.

But I watch world events. I've watched world events since, well, as long as I can remember. Maybe because I was raised in a very Dispensational church in the '60's and world events at that time were causing preachers like ours to preach on End Times stuff all. the. time. But in the preaching I did learn that what happens in one part of the world has a direct influence on what happens in my little world. It might take years, or it might take just a few minutes, but it will affect me in some way at some time. The cultural revolution in the '60's also taught me that. Just look where we are now in our society and culture compared to where we were in the '50's. The new tv program "Skins" is a direct descendent of what happened in the 'revolution'. So is the rise of homosexuality in America and even around the world.

I'm sure I've written about this before, but a change happened in the '50's and '60's. One of Mel's profs in seminary truly believed that Satan had been loosed from the pit then. Revelation 20:7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Maybe we are in the middle of that right now, the deceiving of the nations. If so, the time will come for the rest of it to be accomplished as well.

I read about what is going on in Algeria. I read about the unrest in Egypt (one report I read today said there may have been or may be a massacre of protestors in Suez!). I think about what is going on in North Korea where millions of people are on the verge of starvation, or are already in the midst of it.

Those places are so far away and have nothing to do with MY life! we think. But not really. Mexico is on the border of the US and the violence is spilling over into the States now. Unusual cold has affected grain crops in many places of the world. Floods have wiped out farm land areas the size of Germany and France combined in Australia. Our planets' oceans are polluted with an amazing amount of oil, caused by man's drilling and carelessness. A volcano has erupted in Japan, filling the air world-wide with more volcanic ash (I wonder when it will get to the point that we once again have 'pink skies' like we did when Pinatubo erupted back in the early '90's? At least they were a weird pinkish during the day in the Wet Mountain Valley when looking toward the south - no true Colorado blue skies that whole winter.)

What happens in one part of the world eventually has an effect in another part of the world. Food prices are rising - due to destruction of crop land in Australia (they will need to import more food - competition for that food increases), due to extreme cold in various parts of the world (Vietnam is one example with thousands of cattle dead and crops destroyed), due to drought and/or extreme heat in other parts of the world (Russia and parts of Ukraine lost much of their wheat crop last year due to the unusual heatwave). And so it continues.

I listened to the Revelation series by Art Azurdia and although I was blessed by much of it, I struggled with his non-dispensational view of the book (again, I've written about that before and won't go over it again now). But recently his view has brought me great comfort. If we are in the middle of the Revelation now, as he contends, then just look at that verse in Revelation 20: 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. We are the city he loves. WE are the city he loves. We are the camp of God's people - the Church today is the camp of God's people! And he loves us!

In today's news is this article: U.S. missionary in Mexico fatally shot. Toward the end of the article: Maryanne Wheeler, another friend who worked with the Davises in the 1990s, said Nancy Davis' death was a great loss.

"They breathed Mexico," Wheeler said. "That's their love.

"For 40 years she has gone around Mexico, trying to be there as a nurse, a friend, as a spiritual adviser and has loved them. They lost the best," she said. "They had a petite lady who had the tenacity of a bulldog and was there for you."

Wheeler said the couple had been shot at before and knew the dangers of the border area.

So, things are getting worse, and are going to get much, much worse. But then - oh my! But then will be eternity and things will always be perfect!

Hear the words of J. C. Ryle today on Christ-Centered Quotes for the Renewing of Your Mind: January 27: The state of things after the judgment is changeless and without end. The misery of the lost, and the blessedness of the saved, are both alike forever. Let no person deceive us on this point. It is clearly revealed in Scripture. The eternity of God, and heaven, and hell, all stand on the same foundation. As surely as God is eternal, so surely is heaven an endless day without night, and hell an endless night without day.

Father God in Heaven, help me stand firm in faith to the end of my life. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Forgetting

One of the things I have learned since last February is that some people never forget. And they are willing to bring whatever it is up and slap you in the face with it at the oddest times.

What is amazing to me is that my siblings remember things about me that I am sure are not correct. I think situations have been exagerated over the years, emotions made sharper, things not understood correctly because they were seen through the eyes of small or young children. My childhood is long gone. It happened a lifetime ago. I have no desire to go back and revisit it time after time after time. I had a wonderful childhood. Not perfect by any means, but wonderful none-the-less. As the oldest I ended up needing to watch over my siblings after school when my mother went to work full time. Apparently I was hell on earth to them, at least the 3 next after me. My youngest sister doesn't remember me that way, but she was only in first or second grade then, maybe 3rd? See, I don't remember the specifics unless I sit down and do the math (so and so was such and such an age in this year, blah blah blah). But, oh, they do remember - or think they do! I have no idea what I did - I'm sure that whips and belts and hot irons and other forms of torture were not involved, altho I do remember yelling a lot so they would clean up their mess before mom got home. I usually had my nose in a book, or later, was talking to my boyfriend on the phone while they tore the house up. My job was to make sure it was clean when mom got home and to cook dinner every night. I enjoyed cooking dinner (I wonder if they remember that I was the one who actually made food so they didn't "starve"??). I did not enjoy cajoling them into putting toys away, cushions back on the couch and cleaning up whatever mess they had made. I sure didn't want to clean up after them!!

This summer I learned that 40+ years later the 3 middle ones still resent (and two I think actually hate) me. I've wondered for years and years why whenever family slides came out at holidays why all of the snide remarks about me were made. Mel even commented on it to me once. As is my usual response when something I don't understand, but has the potential of hurting me emotionally, happens, I would try to gloss over it, laugh about it, or ignore it. Well, this summer the s**t hit the fan, so to speak - two of the middle siblings went after my own kids in a very vicious way, along with going after my parents for mostly unknown reasons. I have theories about those siblings' mental health and spiritual conditions, but that is just it - theories.

To make a sick and sad story very, very short - I hope I never see or talk to those two siblings again as long as I live. Never. Never! The third one - well, let's just say that trust issues may never be resolved between us. I do not trust that sibling now, not even a little bit.

My heart weeps over this. I have not been able to write about it because it hurts so badly. I've never been close to those three, for obvious reasons (see second paragraph) and now, well, I hope they drop off the edge of the earth and never come back.

I am sure that this is part of the reason it has been so hard for me to come back to Ukraine this time. I am still dealing with anger issues. I am still dealing with hurts, deep and very painful hurts. I am still fearful that the two may try to emotionally attack my kids or parents again, even though my parents actually got advice on what to do if it happens again from a lawyer who specializes in Elder Law.

Just recently I was reminded of something else that I did that another person has not forgotten. It happened 5 or 6 years ago and I haven't thought about it once - not once - since the initial happening and apologizing and groveling for forgiveness. Not once has it crossed my mind. When it was thrown in my face again during a conversation, I couldn't even remember what the person was talking about for several seconds. It's like I had to dig through layers and layers to uncover what this person was talking about. I'd filed it in the "ooops, that was a big mistake, don't ever do it again, now don't dwell on it and make yourself miserable, forget it" file in my brain. Since that conversation, however, it's been rattling around in my brain, accusing me and making me feel like so much mud on the bottom of someone's shoe again.

Sigh.

Sometimes I LONG for heaven with a longing that is akin to the need to breathe. I know God has forgiven my sin, washed it away through the blood of Jesus Christ, that it is removed from me as far as the East is from the West, that He will remember it no more. People here on earth, tho, seem to love to keep notebooks full of all the wrongs and hurts they have received. They dwell on them, grow them into unrecognizable blobs and then blast them out again sometime in the future.

My personality type tends to live in the "here and now" and apparently forgets more easliy than other types. Not perfectly by any means. Not immediately by any means. Sometimes in the middle of the night I will remember something someone did, or something that I did, and I will burn with shame or embarrassment. But I always tell myself - "LET IT GO! Forget it! Put it out of your mind!" If it was sin on my part, I remind myself that God has forgiven me (and I'd asked for forgiveness from the other person if needed, and had received it). If it was sin on another persons part, I remind myself that God must deal with them. But whichever it is - I let it go. Otherwise - I would be destroyed emotionally and probably physically because things like that do effect our physical bodies.

Knowing that last sentence is true, very true, I know that somehow I need to come to the point where I can forgive my siblings. Oh! The anger is still there! I don't want to forgive them! I want them to suffer! I want them to suffer 100% more than I have, than my kids have, than my parents have. I want them to grovel in agony on the ground. That's what I want. Instead, it is me who is being hurt all over again.

So - let it go. Forgive (so hard to write that word - it does not want to come out of my fingertips!) and forget.

No - this is not something that can be forgotten. It must be remembered - I just have to take the fangs out of the memory.

Dear God - I cannot do this "on my own." Only by Your power, only by Your Holy Spirit living and working through me can it happen. Help me!! I don't want to forgive them!

Wow. I just realized that I am living The Lord of the Rings and could easily become just like my Golum siblings!!! Ei yi yi! I have to let that Ring go. Now. Forever.