Moving

Well I’ve had this blog on WordPress for awhile, and I think I’ll take it back to Blogger.

I miss all the things Blogger lets you do. Especially the widgets, and most especially the HTML widgets. Ya know, a calendar and a blog roll just isn’t enough for me. And most of all …I miss being able to use a 3rd-party template. Jeesh, the default WordPress templates are just not me. I might add, the Blogger default templates aren’t me either, but they let you put in your own templates.

I plan to still use Worpress because I do like the PAGE feature. I’ll probably make a lot of pages.

But for everyday blogging, I’m goin back to Blogger. I’ll come back here and leave the link as soon as I get it up and going there.

How To Avoid Lugging In Heavy Things On Ice And Snow

I live in COLD country. We have long, hard winters. A lot of snow, and a lot of cold. So today I went out for my annual stock-up. The goal is to not have to go out much in January and February. Especially for bulky or heavy things like paper towels, canned goods, laundry detergent, and anything I can think of to get now, ahead of the winter. I got tons of toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, and just a myriad of “stuff” that I won’t have to lug in over ice and mud and snow.

For those of you who like to be organized, here’s a tip. Go through the house and make a list of everything that uses batteries, then go out and get a whole new batch and throw the old ones out. I began doing this after some batteries corroded on me and left a mess on my cassette player. Now I get batteries once a year, and I know that all the batteries in the house are no more than a year old. Later today I’ll go around and replace every single one. PLUS, I take a Sharpie and put the date on them so if I overlooked anything, there will be no guessing game whether the ones I have are old or not.

I got a bottle of cold-water laundry detergent and a bottle of detergent for whites. Those bottles are heavy, and it feels so good to know I won’t have to be lugging them in across the slippery parking lot. I got several large jars of spaghetti sauce and several jars of peanut butter. It just feels good to have gotten all this done today.

Ok, ready for another tip? How many times a year do you go out to get a birthday card, or a sympathy card, or a new-baby card? If you want to be efficient, every time you go for a card, get a few more of that same category. But if you want to be SUPER efficient, take an afternoon and go with a list and get ALL your cards for the next year. Then get one of those accordion files and put tabs on them for each month of the year. Put all your cards in the correct month, and there you go, no more late cards. Ummm, you could even address them now. Ok, I know, I know….

Well, that’s been my day, and I’m purring. I’m sure I’ll think of a few more things I overlooked, but there’s still time before the first snow begins to fall. In fact, that’s why I start in November. I can pick up more things in December, then in January and February I can enjoy not having to run out for something I could have gotten earlier.

Another Light Coming

I see the light again.

Thirty four years ago, the Lord brought me through the “born again” experience. At the time, I struggled heavily with depression. So I asked him if he had anything that could bring joy into my life. And shortly after, someone gave me the book, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” by Hal Lindsey.

To say that brought joy into my life would be a vast understatement. I read things in that book that I had never heard of before, how that the Lord will most likely come for us in this generation. The teaching is that the re-establishment of the nation of Israel is the greatest event that has happened on the earth in  2,000 years, and signals the generation in which the Messiah will come.

I had never read the Bible before my “born again” experience, so it came as a shock to me to learn all about Israel’s history AND her future. At that time in 1974, I hadn’t even known that there WAS a newborn nation of Israel on earth. All I knew about Israel was that Jesus had been born there, lived there, and died there. So to learn all I learned about the whole Israel story was quite a shocker to me.

Jesus told his disciples what the signs of his return will be, and those signs are all present right now. He quoted wars, rumors of war, earthquakes, famine and pestilence, nation rising against nation and the most important one, the re-budding of the “fig tree,” which is a symbol of Israel. There have always been wars, earthquakes, etc. but what is to signal to us that these are the signs he’s talking about is when they happen concurrently and increasingly as “birth pains.” And that’s been happening these last few years, especially in the very recent ones.

I was born with Israel. The UN declared the land of “Palestine” to be the homeland of the Jewish people in November of 1947. I was born in November of 1947. Six months later, the newborn state of Israel was declared by David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of newborn Israel, on May 14, 1948.

So in 1974, I began watching the events shaping up toward the “last days” scenario foretold by Jesus and by the Jewish prophets of thousands of years ago. 

There is a day, known only to God, when “the church age” will close and Jesus Christ will come for his church which must leave before the clock begins ticking again in God’s “last days” program of bringing the children of Jacob into the redemption planned for them since before the foundation of the world. It will be a seven year period culminating in the return of the Messiah, who will bring forth their redemption. For anyone interested in knowing more, this period is called “the 70th week of Daniel,” and is described in the Book of Daniel in the Bible. And there’s more about it in the writings of the other Old Testament prophets.

So for the church, the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, the next event for us is the Bridegroom coming for his bride, the church. The last seven years cannot begin until the church age has closed.

Over the years, believers have watched as though with a magnifying glass every hint of his coming. Some have made guesses based on what they have perceived in the Scriptures, in the planetary happenings, in the Jewish Feasts, and other ways and means of understanding the hints. And this has been the joy in my life, watching, straining to understand, listening to what others have come up with, and hoping that maybe this time will be it.

And I’m watching again – because of a discovery made by a pastor in Washington state. He discovered that in the years 2014 and 2015, there are going to be eclipses, and the way they appear seem to indicate they will coincide with natural disasters foretold in the Biblical descriptions of the end of the seven year period before the Messiah comes.

Now, one is not persuaded by the occurrences of eclipses. There have been many eclipses even during my lifetime. What makes these eclipses different from all others is that they take place ON the Jewish fall holy days. There’s A LOT more to it, and if anyone would like to watch the broadcast about these eclipses and all that goes with it, here’s the site:

http://www.prophecyinthenews.com/

Scroll down to “Solar and Lunar Eclipses” part 1 and part 2 

The point of it is that IF those eclipses happening on the Jewish holy days in 2014-15 ARE to coincide with the natural disasters predicted for the time just prior to the coming of the Messiah, then you have to subtract 7 years or more for the occurrence that must precede the last seven years, namely, the coming of Jesus Christ to take the believers, which finishes the church age. And of course, seven years from 2014-15 is 2008.

Another factor to consider is that this year, Rosh Hashanah which falls on September 29, begins a new sabbatical cycle, so this lends all the more credence to it.

Ok, so what do I mean when I say I’m watching this coming light?

Have you ever been waiting for someone to arrive, someone who seems late? You see a car coming so you go to the window thinking maybe that’s them. The light goes by, so you go sit back down. Awhile later you see another one coming, so you get up again and go to the window, only to see that car go by too. Regardless how many times this happens, you’re watching for this expected person.

I’ve done this very thing before. Each time I’ve seen a light coming, I get up and watch. And this is another one of those times. If this light goes by and my Lord hasn’t come, I’ll just keep watching because one of these times it WILL be him.

This, to me, is the most exciting thing that can happen in life. I’ve spent these many years studying every facet of it. I’ve even been to Israel to see for myself what God has done and is doing there, in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. This has put more joy into my life than anything else possibly could. It’s a living hope, a joyful watching, a sharing with others who have this same desire to watch.

Let me just make one thing clear for anyone who might be confused about what I’ve said. There are TWO events I’m talking about:

The first is the promised coming of Jesus Christ to take his believers out of this world before the last seven year period begins.

The second is the coming of the Messiah at least seven years later, when he comes to Israel to end the war of Armaggedon in which Israel is about to be destroyed. Instead, he saves Israel, destroys those nations that have come against her, and then reveals to Israel who he is. Then he sets up his physical Kingdom on earth, ruling and reigning upon the Throne of David from Jerusalem.

Anyone interested in discussing this further, contact me at:

pmailletblogs at gmail.com

And if you’d be interested in knowing more about this promised coming of Jesus for his believers, look here:

The “Parousia”

 
 

Preventing A Blogging Disaster

A blogging friend of mine had a blog disaster. Someone hacked into his computer and was able to “see” as he typed in his username and password, and then that low life was somehow able to get in and disable my friend’s blog. Now my friend can’t get into it at all, and had to abandon that blog and start all over from scratch. I can’t imagine how this could have been done, but it happened and it scared me half to death.

I have EIGHT blogs and the thought of them being disabled just made me nauseous. So I’ve spent several days backing everything up. You know, it’s something we should be doing anyway. But it took my friend’s catastrophe to scare me enough that I just had to do it.

So now on my hard drive I have two new folders. In one I’ve saved a copy of every post I have in all the eight blogs, complete with the original date right in the filename. In the second folder I have the html code of every widget and all the bells and whistles on each and every blog. So at least I have the secure feeling of knowing I could re-create each blog should it become necessary.

Why do we wait till disaster strikes before doing the obvious? This is something I “should” have done a long time ago. But you know, you just put it off and put it off, until something happens to scare you enough that you finally go ahead and do it.

I’m saying “you,” but I actually mean “me.” Me the old procrastinator.

Another plus along the way is that I learned a lot while doing it. A couple times I had to do a Google search for information and you know how that is, the information it brings up raises another question and yet another, and by the end of the evening you’ve learned some really good stuff, except that you’ve gotten far away from the original question. So it got my brain a chug-a-lugging and I’m thinking of making a page just on basic tips in html that I’ve found and used successfully.

Well, that’s for another day. I have to spend at least a couple weeks procrastinating before taking on another task. Just wouldn’t feel right otherwise.

Hidden Places

I received an email this morning from a brother in the Lord, who’s intent was to tell me I’m wrong in what I do, or the way I do it.

A couple interesting things happened as a result.

Of course, the human reaction to something like this is always going to be anger, and that’s what I felt at first. With some choice words I’d like to say to him. And all kinds of justifications.

But the thing that happened next was a real eye-opener to me.

As I was brooding over this, the thought in my mind was that I am not even going to mention this to the Lord. I’ll just bless that brother, and let it go, so that I can keep my heart in peace.

But later, when I came before the Lord for my morning time with Him, my decision to not even pray about this came under the Lord’s spotlight. Clearly. And it stung, as I was directed to take a good look at it. I mean, you’re sitting there before the Lord, and there’s no way to avoid it once He has opened it up.

First of all, what came to my attention was the question WHY had I meant to not pray about it? And as I sat there in the Lord’s presence, I realized He was exposing another layer of rebellion and self-will in my own heart, this awful fleshly element which demands that I do what I want to do no matter what, especially since I firmly believed that what I do IS the right thing before the Lord.

But as I continued in meditation, He showed me that whether or not what I do is right before him – is NOT the issue. The issue is what this incident has bared in my own heart, a rebellion and self-will that I truly thought was long gone from me, but apparently has left some tentacles behind. The thought of bringing what I do and presenting it to ANYONE’S scrutiny, even the Lord, was something my heart was stamping its feet about and angrily rejecting.

This is the second time in about a week that this very same thing has happened. And in both cases, the issue has not been what I do, but what lurks way down deep, hitherto unexposed. Pride. Self-will. Rebellion. And it would take something like this incident to bring it up into the light, because I had no idea it even still existed in me.

So as I sat before the Lord this morning, He showed me the pride and rebellion still in my heart. As I was about to speak to Him about it, I immediately felt that awful sting, the sting PRIDE bites you with when it doesn’t want to be exposed. But the Spirit of the Lord prompted me to overcome it, and so I took a deep breath and opened my heart widely before the Lord, confessing all this to him as SIN.

I realized that if anything I do as ministry unto Him is in any way NOT his will for me, then how on earth can I expect him to be in it or to bless it?

Do you really want to be “on your own” in what you do, suggested the Spirit of God? You in control? You the driver?

Are you kidding???? Do I not always pray for direction, guidance, resources, even a censor at my lips? No, of course I do not want to be “on my own.” That would defeat the entire purpose of what I do.

“So then,” the voice continued, “why are you hesitant to bring the criticism to Him? Is it not from fear that he will confirm that you’ve been wrong in what you’ve been doing?”

Groannnnnnn. Silence. Then finally, “yes, Lord, it IS from that fear. What if I’ve been wrong all along? Then I’d lose everything and have to start all over again.”

“Is that worse than going on, if you’re wrong? Because if you ARE wrong in what you’re doing, it’s going to amount to zero effectiveness. You’ll be writing just for the sake of getting YOUR ideas out there.”

“God forbid, Lord!”

“God forbid?”

“Yes, Lord, God forbid. My purpose in life is to glorify you in fulfilling all of the call with which YOU have called me, and if I ever stray away from that and get into MY will rather than YOUR will, what profit is it? I’d be totally wasting my time.”

“That’s correct.”

“So ok, then, I bring it to you. I open my heart bare before you. I especially confess to you that I even HAD those thoughts rooted in pride, rebellion, and self-will. Purify my heart, oh Lord, remove from me every last vestige of pride and self-will. I didn’t know bits of them were still there. HOW STUPID could anyone be who desires to serve you, yet won’t even bring a criticism to you lest it be confirmed as valid criticism? That’s absolutelly absurd. If the criticism is valid, then we need to deal with it. And I stand ready for you do deal with me, regardless of the price or the pain.”

It was a heavy session there with God this morning, all focused on this incident and what it exposed in me. That is a painful thing to experience, especially because the pride and self-will inside the heart is going to scream at the top of its lungs, demanding that you agree with it. You don’t recognize it as pride or self-will; instead you gather together all the arguments against it, to prove the criticism wrong. And most of the time, that’s the end of that incident. You win. And …you lose.

It can’t be so with anyone who desires to walk in discipleship, in intimacy, with the Lord. Before one desires this, he must question himself whether or not he’s willing to pay the price, because when the spotlight of the Lord shows up a hidden evil, it hurts immensely, and one’s reaction is going to be an angry attempt at justifying one’s self.

But having said that, I, as a witness of this process, must add that when that hidden thing is exposed and confronted and resisted, and finally surrendered to the Lord, the result is going to be an incredible and indescribable peace. And a blessing will follow that, had one known it in advance, one wouldn’t have hesitated in the first place. But one WON’T know in advance, because the hidden issues of the heart are very, very serious things and necessitate a 100% surrender if one is going to be discipled by the Lord whom one professes. “No pain, no gain,” they say, and never is that so true as it is in the walk we are called to walk under the Master.

An interesting thing happened after this session was completed. I always have my prayer time BEFORE my Scripture reading time, because many times the answer to whatever came forth in my prayer time, will be found in my Scripture time. And lo and behold, that was to be true today. My Old Testament reading DIRECTLY spoke of all I have written here. And my New Testament reading DIRECTLY confirmed that what I have been doing IS what I’m called to do.

That just blew my mind! Even having experienced this kind of thing SO many times throughout the years, you just never get used to it and are surprised all over again when the Lord has gone before you to make sure it works out like this. It’s beyond awesome!

And now I sit here in the peace I had before this all happened, but with another enemy vanquished and a new layer of healing applied to my soul. Thank you, Lord. Thank you so much for not leaving me at the beginning, when I was stamping my feet.
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Why Is It…

Why are most swear words directed toward God?

Even in everyday plain talk you hear “oh God!”

or “oh my God!”

A person gets irritated and says, “Jesus Christ!”

I’ve never heard anyone say, “oh Buddha!”

Or “oh Allah!”

What is it about the name of Jesus? Think about it.

There’s one avowed enemy of Jesus Christ who takes pleasure
every time the Name of Jesus is blaphemed, and that’s Satan,
once called Lucifer.

I suggest that next time you get angry, instead of saying “Jesus Christ,” say “oh Satan!”

or “oh Lucifer!”

or “oh my Allah!”

or “Buddha sakes”

And leave the Name of the Savior to those who speak that Name in love.

You might be glad you did when you stand before Him.

Each One Is Unique In The Universe

I’ve been working hard to get my graphics blog up and running. As I was creating the posts, it occurred to me what an awesome process it has been. And my God has created this whole story, so I need to bring to him the credit due him.

The very beginning of the story was a day many years ago when I received an email from my cousin Carlene, in which she had put an animated smiley. Email was still relatively new in those days, and never before had I seen any kind of graphic in one, so this little smiley opened up in my mind all kinds of questions. I emailed her and asked “how in the world did you do that?” And she replied that she had no knowledge on the subject, but that she just followed step one, step two, and step three as a computer tech showed her.

Well! I was determined to find out how this was done, and thus my search for knowledge in graphics was born. I began searching the internet for animated graphics to put into my emails. I emailed a few people asking “how to” questions, and the consensus was that you need a graphics program to create your own animated graphics. Well in those days, the graphics programs were very expensive, so I resigned myself to using graphics others had made and had posted onto the internet. I found a free graphics-editing program on the internet and thought I had found gold! This program allowed you to crop, recolor, and resize animated graphics, and I spent many, many, MANY hours playing with it and absorbing understanding of how it all works.

One day, I stumbled upon a site with beautiful graphics, both animated and still, and after emailing the site owner I found that many people working with graphics were using a program called “Paint Shop Pro.” Well ….I searched and found it, but behold ….it was expensive. I couldn’t justify spending that much on something I had no idea if I’d be able to use. One thing that particularly appealed to me was that this program had an animation sub-program in it. I found the Paint Shop Pro site and emailed them asking if I could buy just the animation sub-program. No. Oh well. However, when I talked this over with my daughter Sherry, she suggested that we buy it together. In those days, you could make a copy of a CD, so we could each have one copy. So that’s what we did. We each paid half and now we’re both able to use it. I’m still thinking, of course, that I only want the animation program. Little did I know….. For now, though, I immersed myself in learning how to modify animated graphics, and what that consisted of was simply importing graphics others had made and learning how to edit them in Animation Shop.

Fast forwarding…..

I was at my sister’s house in California one day, and we had gone down to the ocean to walk on the beach. On this particular day I was very troubled. I couldn’t overcome a fault I saw in myself, and it was tormenting me. I poured out my whole heart to my sister. Finally, we left and went back to her house. When I checked my email, I found one that someone had sent that grabbed my heartstrings. This was a beautiful photo that someone had put inspirational words onto. Incredibly, the words were exactly addressing the very things I had been troubled with. I forwarded the email to my sister and we were both just in awe that this message so personally ministered to me, and we KNEW God had prompted it because the timing and personal-ness would have been impossible to have occurred by chance.

But Eureka! A new ministry was born. When I realized the power this had to minister to me when I was so down, I found a desire in my heart to learn how to do the same and provide beautiful inspirational messages that I could send to others and hopefully be an encouragement to them as had been done to me. So now ……it was time to start learning Paint Shop Pro. Not the animation sub-program, but Paint Shop Pro itself. So. I bought “Paint Shop Pro For Dummies,” and began trying to learn the program. No way hosay, I couldn’t even understand the words they were using. So I went and bought “Paint Shop Pro For Absolute Idiots.” Well this was a bit better, but it still was way beyond me. What to do! Well …..one day as I sat at my computer experimenting and desperately trying to understand what they were attempting to teach me, I came to the end of my ability and said, “Father, I need help. This is just beyond me.” And shortly after that, a thought came into my mind, “search for Paint Shop Pro tutorials on the internet.” So I did a search and much to my surprise, there were tons of them. So I opened one and took a look at it, but it was just more of the same, what I had been trying to learn in my books, but couldn’t. So this wasn’t going to help, and again I was ready to just put it all up. But then, another thought came to mind, “search for Paint Shop Pro BEGINNER tutorials.” Ok. I typed those words in. And had another Eureka! moment as beginner tutorials filled my computer screen. And thus my graphics education was launched. I spent the next several YEARS learning more and more and more in Paint Shop Pro, and began putting out beautiful art work similar to the one that had so ministered to me that first day after our walk on the beach. I was in my glory, HOW I loved learning everything I could learn on this subject.

Fast forwarding a couple more years now…

One morning a friend emailed me with a link to something called a “blog.” I had never heard the word, and had no clue what a blog was. But I followed the link because it was concerning something I was very interested in. I came to this person’s “blog,” and spent some time looking over it. This was something entirely new to me. As I was about to leave the site, I noticed the words, “Create a Blog.” I clicked on it to see what would happen, and to my amazement discovered that it was free, and I just might be able to have my own site online. My heart pounding, I followed the directions and could hardly believe it — there MUST be a catch — there I sat staring at my own web site. I hardly moved from that chair for the next month as I studied all about this new tool and endeavored to learn all I could about it. Again, it was difficult because I didn’t have anyone to ask questions of when I got stuck. But I stayed with it because I knew this was going to open up to me a whole world of possibilities.

It’s been so awesome since then. I now have FIVE blogs, plus others that are extensions of one or another of them, and spend most of my time either writing or creating inspirational pictures to put on them. It hasn’t been easy, because from the beginning I have had no one to ask questions of, so when I got stuck I stayed stuck for a long time, until finding the solution to whatever problem I ran into, and there have been MANY. However later on, the Lord provided me with a couple friends in the “blogosphere” who made suggestions and pointed me in the right directions to resources I’ve used to vastly improve my blogs.

Some people like golf. I don’t. Some people like fish. I don’t. God has made us as unique as our fingerprints. There is no one in the universe who could be a better YOU than YOU. God has placed within each of us gifts, talents, interests, and personalities that only HE can develop to the fullest. If I had to bat a ball around I’d go insane. If I had to go fishing or, God forbid, eat fish, I’d pine away. If I had to live in Alaska I’d sink into depression. But there are people on earth who love these things immensely. That doesn’t make them bad or good, these aren’t qualitative things, they’re just the outworkings of who they are. I’ve always been a computer operator. On one job, my boss’s boss said to me one day, “I don’t understand how you can stand sitting in front of this computer all day.” The truth is, I don’t understand how anyone could NOT want to do the same. Because the way I am is the way God made me, and I couldn’t be happier working at these things daily. It’s life to me, whereas it might be death to someone else.

But God knew all that of course, it’s the way he made me. And he developed my story over many years, slowly, slowly bringing me into a learning process that has become my delight in life. Oh, that reminds me — I think I should have started this story even earlier. Let me tell that part too. Gotta back up to tell this part.

At one point in my life I found myself a single parent and facing the necessity of having to go to work. I didn’t know how to proceed. Then I discovered a government program purposing to train people such as me to find work the most suitable to us. There was only one door open to me. They had a computer training course and wanted to know if I’d take it. Oh boy! You have to understand that this was in the early days of personal computers. I had no idea what they were, and could only think of my former husband’s electronics textbooks, and I knew I absolutely did NOT want to learn electronics. So I resisted and asked God to open a different door for me. But nothing else opened. I prayed some more and asked friends to pray with me. Nothing else opened. I was petrified. But I had to tell the CETA office that I’d go to the course, it was the only door open. I had to compete with 60 others for one of the 16 seats available. I dreaded to think this was what God wanted for me. I told him that if this were from him, I’d have to let him confirm that by having me pass the tests and get one of those seats. But I was NOT going to brush up for the exam, because I just hated the thought of passing and having to learn
electronics, errrrrr, I mean, computers. Same thing, I thought.

Well of course, I passed and found myself sitting with 15 other people in a classroom that had one computer, an Apple IIE. I was so downhearted. So uninterested. And the first few days were terrible. I didn’t understand a word the teacher said. I wanted to just drop out, but my mother suggested I give it a full week, so I decided I could at least do that. Well …..the fog cleared and I began to understand, and then understand more, and then rise to the top of the class. Little did I realize that the Lord had laid the foundation for the rest of my life. My interest grew, and grew, and grew, until I found myself with a computer in my own home, a Commodore 64, and the world of computing became what I “do” —- for the rest of my life. Every job I’ve worked since then has been a computer job. To say that I love computing would be an understatement. The possibilities are endless. I don’t do just one thing on the computer, I’ve found endless possibilities out there, all somehow related to my goal, which is to glorify the Lord in all I do, and to be an inspiration and encouragement to others. The sky’s the limit. At any one time, I usually have four or five different programs open, going back and forth in them in whatever project I’m doing.

To anyone reading this I want to say this: God has made you totally unique. There is only one of you on this earth, you’re as unique as your fingerprints. He has put within you your interests, talents and gifts, and all your personality traits. He has a plan for your life, and if you seek him, you will find that all that you are has been made to fulfill his plan for your life. Life is SUCH an adventure when you’re walking in HIS plan for you. In mine, I’ve been taken to the other side of the world and back, entirely funded by him. Every day is a new challenge with new opportunities to find fulfillment in what he provides for unique me. Is the cost worth it? Oh yes, there IS a cost, because he demands total surrender and you’ll oftentimes find yourself in a part of your story that you absolutely do not understand. At times like those, you have to walk in blind faith. But once you’ve been tried and tested, opportunities will open up to you beyond your wildest dreams. And the end result is a fantastic adventure, walking with the Creator of the universe who is totally in love with you. Nothing else could possibly fulfill you more than his plan for your life. If you choose not to go that way, you’re on your own. Your life will be only the walking out of what you think YOU can do to fulfill yourself. At the end you’ll find that you missed it, because nothing of your own doing can provide the total satisfaction and joy that can come ONLY through a walk with your Creator. But should you choose to walk with him, on his terms, you’ll finish with a satisfaction you never would have believed possible, and an awe at this God who knows you so thoroughly and seeks only to develop your full potential according to everything he has uniquely placed within you. Go for it. You won’t be sorry you did!

Winter -The Price Is Worth It

I wish someone would inform Al Gore that we’ve had 103 inches of “global warming” this winter, which is more than double the “average” snowfall for Maine in a typical year. And we’re getting another foot of snow tonight! Yes, I know, polar bears are dying in the arctic because of melting ice floes –well then let someone bring them to Maine! I don’t know about you, but I think the only worthy thing about Al Gore’s theory is the huge bucks he made selling his book and speaking at colleges. With each shove of the shovel tomorrow, I’ll pretend he’s on the end of it. This afternoon I heard a noise out back, and upon investigation I saw a large industrial-sized scoop truck scooping tons of snow into a dump-truck because there’s just no more room to put the snow. We had lost 4 parking spaces on each side in the parking lot, that is, the width of four parking spaces on both sides, eight in all, were piles upon piles of snow that had been plowed, with not a square inch left to pile any more. So they had to haul truckloads of it out of here.

Having said that though, spring is definitely in the air even in the face of another snow storm. We’re making the transition from the single digits and teens (fahrenheit), all the way up into the 40’s next week. Which means the ice should start melting, which means I can go out walking in the neighborhood, which means the sap starts flowing in the maple trees, which means the crocuses will be popping out of the earth soon, and the robins will start thinking about coming home.

On the other hand, it also means weeks and weeks of rain, and gray skies and mud season. But it’s worth it in order to get to the delightful month of May, the most beautiful month of the year in Maine. Many “Mainers” prefer the vibrant colors of fall foliage, and I agree that’s all beautiful, but to me, nothing compares to the joy in the air when the sun shines in May. How do I describe the feeling — I know, it’s like the feeling you felt as a child when the familiar tune of the ice cream truck came nearer and nearer to your neighborhood. It’s all joy. It’s all delight.

I used to HATE winter until one day I realized it’s the price we pay for the privilege of living here. I’ve lived in many places – I counted 22 moves in my lifetime (so far) and the more I’ve traveled the more I’ve appreciated the state of Maine. I spent a lot of time in southern California. Never once did I drive a car in that insanity on the highways. Cars dashing in and out, changing lanes with hardly a warning, and all at speeds coming close to the speed of a rocket booster. People laugh at me when I tell them that I can’t stand that kind of traffic, but they don’t realize that where I come from, a traffic jam is a four-way intersection with a car on each side. On interstate 95 in Maine, if you’re north of Augusta, you can drive for long stretches without so much as a single car in your rear-view mirror. Now THAT’S enjoyable driving.

Another thing I didn’t like in southern California, was being in the minority when going to Burger King or any other place in the metropolis. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT prejudiced, I have friends who are not white caucasians and I treasure them. But for the most part, people just naturally tend to want to be with their own kind. It’s just more comfortable to be with people who have the same cultural background as you, the same idiosyncrasies, the same ordinariness typical of one’s particular background. It’s NOT that one race or culture is better than another – it has NOTHING to do with quality. It’s just the comfort of familiarity. And today, that’s not possible if you live in the large cities. I once worked overseas in a multi-cultural organization, and I can truly say I cherished each and every person I worked with. In fact, it was fun to compare stories related to our backgrounds. I bent over in hysterics when I heard someone say he was going to get a “torch,” meaning a flashlight, or when someone referred to the front of the car as a “bonnet.” It was great fun. We argued over whether what I held in my hand was a cookie, a biscuit, or a scone, and I never gave up in my insistence that what they call “chips” are really “French Fries.” I got used to hearing languages foreign to me, and delighted when I could recognize which language was being spoken when I heard it from someone I didn’t know. But at the end of the day, the Dutch pretty much hung out with the Dutch, the Germans with the Germans, the Americans with the Americans, etc. Though the multi-cultural experience is richly rewarding, the natural tendency still is to relax with the familiar.

Now how did I get onto that rant? Oh yeah, I was talking about why I love living in Maine. Maine is laid back, quiet, geta cuppa coffee and hang out. Kids ride bikes in the street. There’s lots and lots of green. Trees, grass, flowers, mountains, lakes. People are “down home” – you go into a store and you’re sure to meet someone you know. I love the familiarity. And that’s NOT to say that Maine is in any way lacking. My town has two colleges plus a community college, two hospitals, theaters, plenty of places to eat out, and all the amenities of a cozy, comfortable lifestyle. What’s not to like? If going to bars is your thing, we have bars. If faith is a great part of your life, we have churches of most denominations, a synagogue, many home fellowships.

So back to my original subject, it dawned on me one day that if we had year-round summer here as they have in southern California, we’d have the year-round crowds too. In southern California you can’t breathe. It’s noise and wall-to-wall people everywhere you go. Busy, commotion, noise, push and shove, isolated human bodies in crowds of people who don’t know each other, rush, rush, rush, ohhhhhh ….that’s NOT for me. I’m just happy that there remains a place like Maine. And it’s all because of winter. It’s all because of the really rough winters we have here. If it weren’t for those terrible winters, Maine wouldn’t be Maine anymore, it would become masses of isolated people who don’t know each other cramming in front of you in the store, on the highway going 90 miles an hour, craziness, I get over-stimulated just thinking about it. Winter is the price we pay for the lifestyle we enjoy here.

The bottom line is that what I once hated I now welcome, because it’s the reason I can enjoy the kind of life I enjoy. So thank you, God, for Maine. And please –don’t listen to Al Gore.

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Sowing And Reaping

Well it’s been awhile since I got started on this journal. That’s because I’ve been slaving over a project, and I do mean slaving, boy what a lot of work! Someone emailed me asking why I have so many blogs and I realized that’s confusing to some, so I decided to create a Home blog, like a Blog Central with links to each of my other blogs. Now, whenever I put up a new post I’ll put up an entry saying *NEW* right there on my Home Page, with a link to the post. I don’t think I’ll notate additions to this journal though, because I can’t imagine anyone being interested in the kinds of things I’ll be writing here.

Now creating that Home page wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Design is a problem to me. In order to get things the way I want them, I have to work with the HTML, and “you’re on your own baby!”

I think I know why, too. It’s the law of “sowing and reaping,” found in Galatians 6:7. When I was young I rebelled. I rebelled against my parents, my teachers, against any and all authority. I could go into all kinds of reasons and blame everyone and anyone but myself, but I’ll spare you (and God) that, and let’s just say I was a rebel. I never took a book home to study, and never did homework. Only by the grace of God did I graduate from high school.

Well ….this is a very good portrait, I think, of the law of sowing and reaping. Now as an adult, and having found a passion, I wish SO much that I had someone to ask questions of when I get stuck trying to do things with HTML. It’s almost uncanny that among all the people I know, not one knows HTML, there’s not a single person to turn to. I rebelled against my teachers, so now when I NEED a teacher, sorry – this is the reaping part baby! So my only recourse has been to search the internet for hints and helps, and I HAVE learned quite a bit. But each and every thing I do is such a MAJOR effort and takes an enormous amount of time.

For example, I wanted to put thumbnails in my sidebar, one for each blog, a picture people can click on that will take them to the corresponding blog. Blogger provides several ways to put things in the sidebar, but the one thing I really wanted to do, they don’t provide a way to do it. One thing I DO like about Blogger though is the ability to work with the HTML so one can modify pretty much anything on the blog. That is, IF one knows HOW to! Well, I searched the internet and spent mucho hours trying to find the way to create what I want, and the diligence paid off, I finally found the information I needed. Quite by accident too, because I stumbled across it while looking for something else. The Lord does not spare us the law of sowing and reaping, but he IS merciful and I could write all night describing the many, many times he has made sure I “stumble upon” the information I’ve needed.

Well, as of tonight, I’ve finally got my thumbnails up and running. I’m not sure I like them though, they might be a bit too large. But enough is enough already! It took me an tremendous amount of time just creating them. Maybe some afternoon when I don’t have anything else to do, I’ll try making them over again, a bit smaller.

Take a look at my Home page. The center column is quite bare right now, but that will fill up as I put up links to new posts.

Click here to see my Home page

I’m tired now, which reminds me, I’ve put a request in to Management asking for 48-hour days. I find it very irritating to have to go to bed when I’m working on something. And I HAVE to because I’m one of those people who is lifeless the next day if I miss sleep. So I guess I have to end this soliloquy and go give my body its sleep. But I’ll be back sooner this time, because far as I know all systems are humming right now. And I have a LOT of writing to do to maintain all the blogs. But — that’s what I “Do.”

Good night!
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My Pet Peeves

As I contemplate how deeply I want to go with this blog, one thing becomes clear to me, and that is that I must talk about the negatives as well as the positives.

Well today I’m going to express a couple of my pet peeves. These have been lingering in my mind in the shower, or at those times I’m drumming my fingers at a red light. The kind of fodder that comes up when you’re lost in meditation inclined to be not nice -after just having arrived at the light as it goes from yellow ….you know.

I heard someone say recently, “when you see the Christmas decorations being put out in the stores, know that Halloween is near.” I’m not sure I can fathom why on earth stores would put out Christmas things in October. It must make some sense in marketing -a subject I never studied because that’s got to be on my top-ten list of boring subjects. But I wish someone would explain THIS to me: When people are shopping before Halloween and Thanksgiving, what possesses the marketers to think they’ll be interested in Christmas decorations? I mean, they sit there taking up space that could have been taken up with ANYTHING other than Christmas things. I wonder what the statistics would be — another on my top ten list of boring subjects — but never mind, I wonder what the statistics would be if they polled people asking whether they would even consider buying Christmas decorations in October. I mean, in October we just got past back-to-school, didn’t we? So let’s say one person in a hundred would CONSIDER buying Christmas ornaments in October — that would mean 99 wouldn’t. So explain to me why it’s good sense to take up space with things that most people aren’t in the least interested in. Christmas in October? I don’t think so! Next thing will be Christmas at Labor Day. No wait — I saw the ultimate this time around -a Christmas in July sale. Enough to give you nightmares – now that I’ve mentioned it I’ll probably dream tonight of Santa soaring through the air in a bathing suit, the reins in one hand and suntan lotion in the other.

Ok, that felt good. Now on to my number two pet peeve, which is actually my number one pet peeve, but I’m putting this second in this post and I can do that because this is my blog.

Ok. Ready?I can feel the cockles jumping up and down inside me just at the thought of it. You know, I used to like watching the news stations. I remember in younger years what a let-down feeling I’d have as each fourth year came upon us with the number-one boring subject getting set to dominate the entire year — every time an ELECTION year rolled around. The presidential race. That meant a whole year of never-ending talking heads filling up our nightly news time with the latest “he said,” and “she said” that characterizes an election year. Every four years I knew I’d have to find something else to watch on tv until the year was over.

Well has anyone noticed? This time around it’s TWO years of this aggravation!!! By the time the election comes around, we will have heard this gibberish for two solid years! Now can someone splain THAT to me? I find it hard to believe that anyone in this country cares what “he said,” and “she said” two solid years before election time. I get TIME magazine, and ordinarily I put up with the first boring part of each issue that covers the armchair speculating and gossip-mongering which always takes up the first fourth of the magazine. But good grief – TWO YEARS of it this time??? You’ve GOT to be kidding!

Does it seem to you as it does to me — when I do see it on tv, or read about it in a magazine, I get this deja-vu feeling transporting me back to my kitchen on Lloyd Road umpiring the latest spat of “he said,” and “she said” between my five and six year olds. Uncanny likeness. Except these five and six-year-olds have gray in their hair. I bet I’ll dream about that now, five and six-year-olds with gray hair. Just watch.

Well I’ll tell you what. I wouldn’t give my vote to a five-year-old and I’m not going to give my vote to any of the contenders in this present pre-election circus. There is one condition, however, in which I might consider voting, and that’s if the contender who in my opinion is the ugliest, evilest, mud-slingeringest one of the bunch should end up being one of the two at the end. I’d vote just to vote AGAINST that one.

I wish they’d make a way we could vote against them both. And have THOSE statistics published afterwards.
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A Christmas Story

When I surrendered my life to the Lord many years ago, He demonstrated his great love and his power by setting me free from something that had kept me in bondage for years. The gratitude I felt was beyond my ability to describe. And he began in me a work which would slowly, but surely, change almost everything inside of me. So to say that I “love” him, is quite the understatement.

My heart, in return, was fixed upon him and I loved him with all of my being. And from that love, I sought to find out what he loves, and what he hates, so I could align my heart with his to the best of my ability.

I learned a lot during the first few years, totally replacing all I had known before, with the Word of God, his revelation of himself to mankind as recorded in the Bible. One thing I discovered is the pernicious hatred of Satan not only for God, but for anyone who loves God. Satan is all about corrupting and perverting and replacing truth with lies. So it shouldn’t have been such a surprise to me to discover that most of the traditions we celebrate our holidays with, are actually rites and rituals that the pagans used in the worship of their gods. And “Christmas” is one of those traditions. Jesus was not born in December, but December 25 was the feast day of a foreign Roman god.

So I had a choice to make. But it actually wasn’t a choice, because my heart just refused to dishonor my Lord with pagan celebrations. And for many years I just endured the unkind remarks of others as I refused to put up a tree in my home, or get involved with any of the other traditions concerning this or any other holiday. Although my heart was pure, it was a painful time for me on the holidays, because I felt isolated in spite of the fact that it was by my own choice. But to my heart there was nothing else I could do, unfaithfulness to my Lord just wasn’t an option, regardless what it cost me.

But one day as I thought upon the fact that Jesus was born during the fall Jewish feasts, it suddenly occurred to me that if he was born in September, then that means he was conceived in December. So I took a closer look at that, and then I saw that there is a Jewish feast in December, Hanukkah. Hanukkah is called the “feast of lights.” And Jesus is “the light of the world.” Could it be ….? Could I actually join other believers in celebrating Jesus in December? In December, not only believers are celebrating Christ, but unbelievers as well. The celebration of his birth, or conception, has touched the entire earth. It’s the greatest season of celebration the world knows, and it’s all because of Jesus coming into our world.

As I mused on this subject some more, I saw something else that just delighted my heart. The Hebrew holy days are often 7-day feasts. And it occurred to me that even the Christmas celebration is a 7-day feast, from the 25th through the end of the year, and then the following day begins a new year. Just as the birth of Christ in my heart so long ago began not only a new year, but a new life altogether. I think the power of the story of the babe in Bethlehem has defeated the power of the deceptions with which Satan has tried to muddy it.

This year, I’ve attended some carol-singing, and my heart was touched more deeply than at any other celebration I’ve ever taken part in. I rose up and rejoiced in all the worship directed to Jesus during this season. I noticed as though for the first time, the glow, the atmosphere, the wonder of the season, as I did as a child. Well, when I was a child, Christmas was all about me. But now, Christmas has become all about my Savior. For the first time, I’ve been able to join in all the glory of the season.

So I’ve come full-circle, from the selfishness of my childhood Christmas, to the forsaking of all that out of a true love for the Lord, and back again as He has enabled me to see him in December, in that impoverished room in Nazareth as his mother said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” It’s not about a day, in fact Hannukkah occurs on different dates in December each year. It’s about the Creator who condescended to become Emanuel, God with us, in order to provide for us the greatest gift a human could possibly receive, the gift of pardon, and of the presence of Emanuel, the light of the world who has become the light of MY world.

And it’s ALL about him!
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A New Thing On My Birthday

For a long time it had been on my heart to begin a prayer group in the 50-apartment building where I live. I had a lot of reservations about it – I don’t have “people skills” for one. It all depended on what I focused on. If I focused on my inabilities, forget it, it’s not going to happen. But if I focused on the need for people to come to know the Lord, it HAS to happen. Nevertheless, I put it in the Lord’s hands, because I was too fearful to step out on my own.

Friday afternoon, several of us were downstairs in the community room to hear Evelyn’s music rehearsal. She does the music at her church, and also ministers music in several nursing homes. She and her sister and brother-in-law rehearse on Friday afternoons and anyone who wants to is invited to listen.

Anyway, there were four of us just sitting there chatting afterward, and one of them voiced a concern about a neighbor who is having a medical problem. Realizing that the four of us are believers, and that we were alone in the community room (an unlikely factor in itself) we began to pray for this neighbor. Someone asked if this neighbor would be open to us going to her apartment to pray directly with her, and the friend said she thought that would be ok. So we went upstairs, and the friend went in and asked her if she’d like that. She was having dinner so we told her we’d wait in the apartment of one of us who lived close by. After a few minutes, the lady with the ailment came to Sandy’s apartment and we prayed for her.

Then something happened. It wasn’t anything we saw or heard, but an awe descended upon us and we began to pray for each other. There was like an electricity in the room, except that it was something reverent, something quiet and peaceful, an awareness that the Lord was among us.

We began to share and it became apparent that several of us had had an inner desire to have a prayer group here. None of us knew exactly how to start one, and all were a bit timid. Then suddenly I remembered — my morning prayers!!!!! This was the day after Thanksgiving and on another day after Thanksgiving, 33 years ago, I was born-again. In my morning prayers of today I had asked the Lord for a birthday gift. Now that’s not something I ordinarily would ask the Lord, except that for the first few years after I was born-again, He always gave me a birthday gift. Later, I didn’t see them so much, probably because I was growing up in the Lord and didn’t really need such acknowledgements anymore. But this year, I asked him for a birthday gift. And this is what happened on my birthday – the birth of a prayer fellowship right here in the place where I live. And I imagine that there could be no greater birthday gift than this!

Today is Wednesday and we had our first regularly-scheduled meeting, and it was wonderful. We prayed, we sang, and we shared, and it was so heartwarming and encouraging that I thought I’d start a new blog to share things like this.

I used to keep a journal, but as the years went on I kind of let it go. It’s time to take it up again and remember all the things the Lord does among us. Praise the Name of our wonderful God who continuously encourages us with manifestations of his love and his personal involvement in our lives!
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