REJECTED BY MEN, ACCEPTED BY GOD

For almost 30 years in the Christian church, I was rejected by pastors, because I asked too many questions. It's okay for a man to ask questions, but in Christianity, it's never okay for a woman,, especially one who asks the hard questions. I've had pastors show me the door, want me to leave, ignore me and treat me like a second class citizen, especially after my husband divorced me. I could almost read their minds. "There's obviously something wrong with her, because her own husband rejected her." So, I stopped going to church. I stopped for almost eight years. I asked GOD why I was always rejected in church and never fit in.

I believe He said, "Maybe, you never fit in because I did not design you to fit in." For thirty years, I was compelled to go to church, because that was obeying Hebrews 10:25. Christians tell you that you are obligated to go to church or there is something wrong with your walk with GOD. You are compelled to tithe, because that's the part of the "Law" they want to keep, the rest, well, that's obsolete. To them, Jesus replaced the Law, but not the tithe. Christians have been teaching this for generations. I've been dismissed by church people because I do not go to church, and yet, I've learned that I was going for the wrong reasons. The Holy Spirit had to re-program me, and it has taken this long, because GOD's revelation through the Holy Spirit is progressive. For a while there, I swore I'd never step foot in another Christian church just like 36 years ago I swore I'd never step foot in another Roman Catholic church. And yet, here I am contemplating whether or not I want to go to a Baptist church this morning that I've been invited to recently.

I almost know what's going to happen. I'm going to ask the hard questions again, and another pastor will likely see me as a trouble maker and make sure I know that I'm not wanted there, however, I'm a different person now. I've stood alone with YHVH for eight years never once being rejected by Him. In fact, I was chosen and anointed to know more, to study more, and to know some of the secrets of YHVH that the devil has blinded most Christians to. I won't go into those secrets, because this blog post is not about that, however, all several hundred of my other posts have been. This I suppose is a wrap up, because I've faced a blank page for months now and not had anything new to write.

I don't blame Christians at all, they are only repeating what their pastors have told them. I don't blame pastors, they are only repeating what their seminary professors have told them. I don't even blame the seminary professors, because they have been repeating what Biblical commentators of old have told them. Who do I blame? The enemy of GOD of course. The adversary began the Roman church, not the Roman Catholic Church, the Roman church, the one that took over in the 2nd Century AD. It all went bad from there, 1800 years of bad. It was the same in Jesus's day, it was the Rabbinical teachers, the teachers of Halacha, the oral law which was a combination of the Talmud and the TORAH. It was the adversary who got into men's brains and corrupted the Word of YHVH, and why Yeshua had to come, to bring back the purity of the TORAH, which means instructions. Here we are 2,000 years later, and we are at the same exact point. Yeshua is not coming back to teach the purity of the TORAH this time, instead He has sent the Holy Spirit and it has lit on fire those of us who were called and anointed to bring the truth to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Just like the day of Josiah, the TORAH has been hidden in the walls of the Church, and YHVH has made sure that it has been found.

One of the secrets of GOD is that He is bringing the two houses of Israel back together like He promised for thousands of years in the Hebrew Scriptures. He is bring the stick of Judah and the stick of Ephraim back together again. Ephraim is the gentile Christian church this time, and Judah are the Messianic Jews. We are all His, but we are not united, yet. The Christians love the verse "blessed are those who bring good news" when referring to missionaries who go to remote parts of the world to bring the Gospel to those who've never heard it. Well, blessed are the feet who bring the TORAH to those who have never heard it, also, because the Gospel is the TORAH and the TORAH is the Gospel. I want to bring the good news of the TORAH to my brothers and sisters in the Gentile Church, but many don't want to hear the TORAH, because they've been told it's the LAW, and we are not under the LAW anymore. Well, if GOD did away with His laws, then there'd be no sin anymore and no need for a Savior.

It's a shame that my gentile brothers and sisters cannot find the Grace that is in the TORAH, because they believe Jesus is the Grace of the Gospel. I want to help change that. My brothers and sisters in Christ have replaced the Holy Days YHVH declared in the TORAH for the unholy days the Roman Church declared. I want to help change that. Lately, I've been doing a lot of study of the time during the Maccabees, the Hellenistic period where the Jews began to blend in with the culture, and I could write a whole new blog just about those times, but it would only sound like the days we are living in now. Christians believe there was a period of silence of 400 years between the two testaments in the Bible, but there was no silence from YHVH at all. YHVH was just as busy about His work then as He is now. Jesus said in John 5, my Father is always working and so am I. There was no time of silence from YHVH, it's just that the Roman Church convinced men that there was because of their hatred of all things Jewish. The Roman Catholic Church has convinced their people that they are the new Israel.

I recently heard from a Messianic brother who found me on a Psalm119 ministries site, and he and I have been emailing. When I told him that I visited a Baptist church he rebuked me and told me that I was sinning to meet with my gentile brothers and sisters in Christ on the first day of the week. I asked him where in the TORAH did YHVH tell us to not meet any specific day to worship Him? I can tell you where the Roman church made it illegal to meet, but there is no day of the week where YHVH told us not to meet and corporately worship Him. In fact, Romans tells us that our true act of worship is to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. In other words, obeying YHVH is an act of worship, not just singing a song on any particular day or meeting on any particular day. Obeying YHVH means obeying His Instructions, i.e. the TORAH, which Yeshua did. Shouldn't we walk exactly like him to the best of our ability? The reason for Jesus coming 2,000 years ago was two-fold, to bring back the purity of GOD's Instructions and to do what the TORAH could not do, and that was to save us and give us eternal life with Him in Paradise. He did not abolish the TORAH, he taught it and obeyed it.

So, I contemplate going to church on the first day with my Baptist brothers and sisters, preparing to be rejected again. If I am, well, I'll wipe the dust off my feet like Yeshua told us to do when we are not welcome, and I'll continue to pursue YHVH and His Righteousness wherever He sends me. If that is only to the blank page, then I'll do it there.

Clueless People Vomiting GOD's Wrath

       With all due respect to the late  R.C Sproul, with whom I vehemently disagreed with on many points, has some really great points in some of his better sermons. I chose this picture to illustrate the point of my title.  Church people are clueless when it comes to relating to non-church people.  I was not a church person for the first twenty-six years of my life, so I remember well living outside the walls of the church without the great Translator, the Holy Spirit.  I know what it's like to hear "greek" when a born-again holy roller said something.  Most church people are the type that have been sitting in a pew since they were in their mother's womb. They don't get us and we don't get them. How can they, they were never one of us.  When I refer to church people, I'm talking about the ones who know nothing other than the morality gospel.  The word gospel means good news, the morality gospel is not good news.  The morality gospel says, "You people outside the church are dirty sinners, and you are all going to hell, unless you conform to the likeness of us,"  PERIOD. 

     Beside the fact that hell is a fictional place, the doctrine of eternal conscious torture and torment was made up by the church, (written about in a previous blog post: The BIGGEST and most EGREGIOUS Lie of Christianity), church people usually use the Bible and Scripture as a weapon and not for healing.  Jesus came to heal and teach, not to condemn.  I know this, because after over two decades as a church person, I did the same thing. It was after a period of being a prodigal, I remembered what it was like to live on the outside.  I wish church people on the inside would get that using Scripture as a weapon does not bring life, but kills instead.  Most of them are too busy bathing and being baptized over and over again in their own self-righteousness that they have lost the entire purpose of the coming of Jesus to bring us to the Father. 

   

    Maybe I can give you another example of if you haven't worn their shoes, you can't walk in them. I've never been a drug addict, henceforth, I do not know their struggle because I've never walked in their shoes.  With that being said, as a cancer survivor who was on some serious pain-killers during radiation hell, I do understand slightly what withdrawal is.  About two weeks after the last treatment, I noticed some alleviation in the pain, hence, I took off all the patches and threw them in the trash.  BIG MISTAKE!  The next day, I woke up, and I wish I hadn't, because I was freezing and sweating at the same time.  I was as sick with the "flu" as one could be without actually having the virus.  Going off all that pain medication in one instant like that was the equivalent of going cold turkey off Heroin after being on it 24/7 for three months.   It was then that I got a whole new appreciation for their struggle.  So, to say I can relate to a drug addict is only in the sense that I get what withdrawal feels like, but I never had the desire to go back to pain medication after that. I can empathize only partially. 

   What is so sad about the ineffective evangelism of the Christian church is that these people raised in it don't understand those who are not.  Only the Holy Translator Who speaks all languages can. The best and only thing one can do is love them and pray for them, because if God wants them, only He can do what it takes to win them. Let GOD convict them instead of you trying to convince them.  The only thing a human does by trying to convince and outsider to live by insider rules is to push the outsider further outside. 

  

    Now, to many, I may come off that way as self-righteous, and I'm sorry for that.  Yet, there is the other end of the spectrum and that is that GOD is all-loving, never judgmental, loving unconditionally, because GOD is Jesus, and not the other way around.  Jesus is part of the Trinity, he is the GOD the Son.  He did come to judge, but he judged the self-righteous right.  He also came to tell sinners that there was a way out, but that way was narrow, and few find it.  He was talking to his own people, the Jews, well, I'm talking to my own people, the church.  The road is narrow, and sadly, many people in the church are on the broad road, the road to destruction, because they have been taught a lie.  The lie is all you have to do is believe in Jesus, and regardless of what you do, you are saved, because if you obey the TORAH, which means INSTRUCTIONS, the same INSTRUCTIONS Yeshua obeyed, well, that's a works doctrine and you are not under grace.  Jesus did not come to abolish the TORAH, GOD's INSTRUCTIONS, he came to do what it could not do, save us, but that doesn't mean we throw the instruction manual out.  

   If we use grace as a license to sin, then we got our license from the devil, not GOD.  We have a license to do good, to live right, not just a  get-out-of-hell-free card.  In other words, if you're sleeping with the flavor of the month and going to church every Sunday, you have created a god in your own image, one you can accept instead of the One who wants to accept you.  Stop going to church, because He hates a hypocrite.  Let me explain what the true and proper "fear of GOD" is, and it's not what you think.  We devoted ones aren't afraid of his wrath, what we are afraid of is the dreaded "wooden spoon" from heaven, maybe y'all from the south would understand the "switch" better. Those who truly belong to YHVH GOD, or are truly working out their salvation in Jesus with fear and trembling cannot go on sinning or living in sin, because the Holy Spirit won't let them.  Sometimes, GOD has to put a hook in our noses to bring us back to him, (2 Chronicles 33)  and blessed is that man GOD will go that far to bring back to the fold, even if he thinks he's still in the fold sitting in a pew every week.  

    

  

ONE TRUTH or THOUSANDS OF DENOMINATIONS

     A newer pastor from a church of which we used to be members, one of the MANY who were invited to preach, and persecuted until they left, called me to ask if we were once members of this congregation, and I said yes. He tried to get me to come back to church on Sunday. I told him I was not a Christian, that I was a Messianic Jew. He said, and I quote, "Well, if you believe in Jesus as your Savior, then I consider you a Christian." I corrected him and told him that Messianic Jews are NOT Christians, because we know that Christianity is a  man-made religion. I told him that I've studied the Scriptures and church history too well, and I cannot go on living the lies I've learned in Christianity. I began to tell him the truth, and he quickly and abruptly ended the conversation and wished me well.  

    This is something we face daily, we lovers of the TORAH.  Christian pastors avoid us like the plague, because they know what the seminaries have taught them: Anyone who believes in Jesus as their Savior is a Christian, and they must fit and conform to the mold, and it's their job to make them conform.  They choose to believe the lie that Yeshua began Christianity.  He did not.  He came to teach TORAH, which means instructions.  He came to divide Halacha, oral law created by man from TORAH, which is GOD's instructions to man.  Halacha is what man added to TORAH, which was strictly forbidden by YHVH GOD. 

   So, the lie that Christianity began with Jesus and his Disciples began with the antisemite church, the Roman Church.   The evil ROMAN Catholic Church lied 1800 years ago and created a corrupt system of government for the followers of Yeshua HaMashiach. They stripped them of their ability to read Scripture on their own when Jerome translated the Scriptures into the Latin Vulgate. (Which went against YHVH GOD's intention of keeping the Word of GOD in a common language most could read.)

The ROMAN Church intentionally harassed, persecuted and murdered any people who tried to get the Scriptures into the hands of ordinary people. If this doesn't boil your blood, nothing will. The great murderous Roman Catholic Church

  Their new system of governance is just as corrupt as the US Federal Government has become. They spawned a rebellious daughter called the Protestant Rebellion, which in turn created in and of itself a just as Corrupt system of the governance of spirituality, dividing it unto thousands of denominations with different sets of rules and by-laws to live by. The Reformation was only people who wanted to rebel from the Mother church, but keep from her what it liked and wanted, i.e. infant baptism and some of the sacraments, including pagan holidays baptized into Christ.

Matthew 5

17 “Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah — not until everything that must happen has happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P’rushim, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!

Yeshua HaMashiach the Son of YHVH GOD was a Torah keeper, and he taught us to do the same. PERIOD. We were told by Sha'ul, the Jewish Pharisee who became a follower of the Jewish Yeshua taught us to walk as Yeshua did. The Roman Catholic Church invented a gentile Jesus with new rules and regulations, and a new gentile Paul, neither of whom ever existed. The Protestant church only extended the corrupt teachings of the Roman Catholic church, and stripped the Scriptures of the Jewish heritage, mostly Martin Luther who hated the Jews, because he could not convert them. The Roman Catholic Church outlawed the Hebrew Scriptures and the Torah completely. Yes, the Roman Church outlawed YHVH GOD's own Instructions which is Hebrew is translated Torah that He established with Moses. Now, that's arrogance.

 NO SUCH THING AS FAILING GOD

       As a former leftist, liberal, feminist, then uppity church pew dweller, then prodigal, and all around screw-up, I know about as much about YHVH GOD, who created the universe as the average screw-up.  I'm far from an expert, but I have studied the Bible inside, outside, and upside down.  I've studied the historicity of it and how GOD dealt with His people throughout the ages, especially His heroes who were total screw-ups. (They were all men, by the way, no women screw-ups in his heroine list that I could find!)  I have lived in the fiery furnace of affliction for decades, some by my own doing, some not, and there is one thing that keeps coming back to me, and it's as old as Genesis.  GOD predicted man's downfall and need for redemption in Genesis 3 and their need for deliverance in Genesis 15, as well as hundreds of other verses in the Whole Counsel of GOD. There is not one event or period of apostasy that GOD did not predict and even anticipate a need for redemption and deliverance for His people.  The plan was set, but man being a stupid as he is, he had to learn the hard way.  I'm like that.  I learn by trial and error, mostly error.  

     In fact, I daily delete my posts on my social media like I clean out my junk drawer in the kitchen.  I don't want to be guilty of posting something wrong about GOD, because as Job's friends found out, GOD's wrath burns against anyone who does not tell the truth about Him. (Job 42:7).  I highly suggest that one take note of that verse before one puts up anything on their social media about the character of the Creator.  There is nothing that irritates me more than when humans bring GOD down to our level or post Bible verses that aren't there or out of context. GOD already came down to our level, and He did a fabulous flawless job of it in Yeshua (Jesus).   He did not fail the mission, but we have thousands of times.  What I'm going to tell you isn't rocket science, so it is not going to require a very long explanation. (But don't count on that from a writer!) Even a kindergarten student could get this.  

       GOD IS OMNISCIENT!

   There, now are there any questions?  What does Omniscient mean?  Well, it means that before you were born, GOD knew every mistake you would make. He knew about that mathematical error on your first grade math paper, to the low score on your ACT or SAT's, or the D you got in Geology 101 as a college freshman, because you slept through the maps portion of the course and you turned in a blank final exam  because your dormmates were going to a frat party the weekend before the exam, and you've never been to a frat party before, and you thought you'd be safe skipping the maps portion of the textbook when cramming the night before the final!  Sound familiar?  

    He also knew about that girl or boy that you would charm into bed because, well, they were hot, and you were dumped by the love of your life; payback, you know? He knew about that bad marriage, that child you screwed up the first time around parenting because you had awful parents and you had no idea what you were doing as a new parent.  He knew about that guy you fell head-over-heals in love with right after your husband dumped you during your cancer treatments, and you went to bed with him, knowing full well it was wrong.  He also knew the pain you would suffer for that decision for years to come, and that's what brought real spiritual growth in your life.  He knew that after all your screw-ups and stupid posts you put on your social media that you would turn back to him with every fiber of your being. He knew that you would dedicate your life to Him, even if that meant a lonely existence with no new love in your life for the rest of your days.  

      Are you catching on?  He knew all the mistakes you were going to make. As a matter of fact, He actually weaved them into your life to teach you how to be a better person and servant.  He loved you like a son or a daughter, because He knew that you would be one, a devoted one, even whilst on your prodigal road, worshiping some random B country singer to get as far away from Him as you could, because life in general broke your heart and you blamed Him.  GOD knew that all your mistakes would get you a PhD in the college of Hard Knocks, and you would turn it all around and write a block buster book that would go viral after you left this earth.  The whole time you were screwing up, He knew that there would be other screw-ups who would someday need a screw-up to look up to!

  
   Learn this one fact, there is no way to fail GOD, because even if you did not do all those things He knew that He had a purpose for your life, and He was going to accomplish it whether you wanted Him to or not.  And, here's the kicker, for those outside the family of GOD, you did not fail Him either, because He knew that you would never turn to Him and want to turn your life around to do something good for the Kingdom.  It's impossible to fail someone who knows your every thought, word and deed before you were even born.  

     If you need another example of this concept, if you are a parent, tell me, do you love your children?  Are they perfect?  When they were born did you expect them to be perfect, or did you know that there would be a lifetime of mistakes that they would make before they turned thirty? It is just like you understand your rebellious teen because it's a phase, one you yourself went through.  Your child did not fail you when they went through that awkward stage of thinking they know more than you at the ripe old age of fourteen.  We cannot fail the Omniscient Creator who knew long before you took your first breath that you would be total screw-up, but one that He loved enough to send His Son for so you could live with Him forever in Paradise.  The next time you see a post where someone confesses to fail GOD, send them my way, so I can straighten them out, because that's my job.  I'm the screw-up everyone needs to know about, because I did all those things, and until I stop breathing, and even after that, GOD will accomplish though me that which He ordained before Genesis 1:1 was ever written let alone spoken. 

  Three Races, 

Two Horses and 

 One GOD! 

     Most of my readers know that  I can relate almost anything that happens in the natural to  spiritual events in heavenlies, and that is because I know that GOD is intricately involved in everything that happens on this earth because it's His creation. When a carpenter builds a house with his own hands, by the time he's finished with it, he knows almost every grain that runs in every plank of wood that built that house. He knows every intricate detail in the design, planning and construction.  GOD is much like that with His Creation and with time and events. 

      I am convinced that one of His most favorite creations besides humans, of course, is the horse.  If you have ever gotten close to one, you can see the Hand of GOD by it's stunning beauty. It wasn't until I came to the horse capital of the world that I truly discovered them, and not until I watched my very first Kentucky Derby that I truly realized the magnificence of this creature. The muscle structure of that animal when it runs just screams Divine Artistry as you see each muscle working in coordination with the bone structure. Although horse racing is as much big business as church business has become, I truly believe that GOD can speak and move through horse racing at electrifying speed if one know where to look.  

        If you haven't lived in a cave, you know that the two superstar horses this year are SOVEREIGNTY and Journalism.  If you know as much about horse racing as I do, you know that there is the Triple Crown in horse racing like there is one football Superbowl, and one NASCAR  500 Cup series race that bring out the best of the best.  The three races are The Kentucky Derby, The Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes.  Every once in a blue moon, one spectacular horse will win all three in the same year. The last time that happened was in 2018 with JUSTIFY.  He's my spirit animal, because that most astounding animal did something no other horse has ever done in the entire history of horse racing.  He came out of nowhere in the end of January, (my birthday weekend), raced for the first time in three qualifying races, and scored enough points to get into and dominate the Kentucky Derby. He then went on to easily take  the Preakness title, and finally, he received the coveted Triple Crown title in the Belmont Stakes.  I totally got into this series, because I knew my future depended on a horse race.  It was just one of the many times my answer and my relationship with GOD flourished from a fleecing!  (Judges 6).  For your enjoyment, Each leg of the the Triple Crown won by JUSTIFY)

  

    I fell crazy madly in love with that horse, not so much because of his breeding, but because of his name.  I was going through one of the most awful times of my life, and there have been many, but I clearly heard GOD promise me that He would JUSTIFY all that I have been through for a greater good. I'm not into gambling away the provisions of Jehovah Jireh, but I have no problems betting my hopes and dreams on a horse race, and GOD has always come through for me. The previously unknown JUSTIFY accomplished what no horse has ever done, then faded into the background by retiring from racing. His present job now is to reproduce other thoroughbreds.  Are you seeing what I'm seeing?  I'm a nobody with the hopes of doing the same.  He's my spirit animal because I see in him what GOD sees in me.  

    I really got involved in this years series when I learned that a horse name SOVEREIGNTY was in the Derby. SOVEREIGNTY is one of GOD's greatest character traits and the one I've battle with the most.  I told Him, (as if He didn't already know), that He could not let any other named horse beat out His SOVEREIGNTY, and that He had to prove that His Name ruled over all.  As usual, He did not disappoint.  Two of the best races I've ever seen were this years Kentucky Derby and The Belmont Stakes. (The Kentucky Derby 2025 and The Belmont Stakes 2025)  

  Recently, I asked GOD about this year's races and why SOVEREIGNTY was not going to run in the Preakness.  I knew there had to be a good answer with a deeper spiritual meaning to this, because he would have easily won the Triple Crown this year.  GOD always answers our questions, but sometimes we have to wait for the answer.  I believe GOD let me know that He took SOVEREIGNTY out of the 2nd leg of the race to show me that  the horse named Journalism does have a stake in the horse racing world and he is a powerful force.  It was then that He expanded on that answer, and the deeper meaning hit me like a Jockey's whip.  Journalism was the bonafide winner of the Preakness and came in second in the other two races just behind SOVEREIGNTY.  

     Now, if you're not putting this together yet, let me do it for you. Journalism represents man's word, and it represents man's free will.  Journalism is what man wills and writes, whereas GOD's Word is SOVEREIGN over man's word and will. So many people have told me that GOD stays out of man's free will.  I always disagree.  Man's free will and word are subject to GOD's  SOVEREIGNTY. Two of my kinship Bible characters,  Jeremiah and Jonah wanted to run from GOD (Jeremiah 20 and Jonah 1), but GOD's SOVEREIGN rule and calling on their lives prevailed.  GOD had ordained a work for them to do, and as much as both butted heads with Him His will accomplished that which He ordained.  Man's free will does carries weight in this world, many times a negative one, but GOD's SOVEREIGNTY will always win over it, because GOD will forever JUSTIFY those who follow close after Him. 

    I've fought with Him over dozens of things that have happened in my life basically because of some men's free will and how it has negatively impacted my life.  I've tried to run from GOD, but each time, He has stopped me cold dead in my tracks.  He has a race for me to run and a prize for me to win, and He knows that eventually I am going to succeed and come out in first place and win this Spiritual Race. GOD's SOVEREIGNTY will rule the race I've been running against other men's will.   If you are anything like me and you are fighting GOD's call on your life, no matter how much you lay back, no matter how slow you run, if GOD has an ordained plan to do a great work through you,  His SOVEREIGNTY will get you where you need to be and when.  Those other horses in the race will be there with you, and you need them, because if there were no other horses, they'd be no need for you to run!  

JUST LIKE I USED TO BE!

     When I was rescued from the "sinful" world and born-again at the ripe old age of 26 years old, I gratefully spent the next 21 years as a devoted student of the Word, and a devout church member. I boycotted anything that was from the liberal left/gay movement. As a former sinner, saved out of the secular world, I had a point to make. I was going to birth an army for the LORD and show the world that I could satisfy and serve my husband, staying married for life. I couldn't get along with non-church members in the sinful world, just like I used to be.  Then GOD thought I had about enough of that. The night before I was to give birth to my eighth child, as a devoted wife and homeschooling mother, YHVH GOD felt that I needed to fall from my high and lofty place, and fall I did, as my happy world came crashing down.

     When my eldest became the first of my prodigals to walk away from the family as well as GOD as an adult, I got a well-deserved pie in the face. Eighteen months later, I was knee-deep back in the secular world, this time as a sinner saved by grace, who wanted nothing to do with GOD. I was angry at a Him and devastatingly hurt, because He let my eldest become an estranged prodigal who wanted nothing to do with us. As far as I thought, I did raised them right, much better than the upbringing I had. He completely let me down, and He let her do what she did. 

     So, what did I do? I became a prodigal, also. If my daughter was estranged from me, well, I was going to be estranged from GOD. Eighteen months later, when I had enough time on my prodigal road, the YHVH GOD came calling for me and He brought me back into the fold. He taught me something I never knew before; G-R-A-C-E. Now, full of grace & shouting it from the rooftops, I can't get along with church members who were just like I used to be.

      Several years later, now as a former wife, and mother to all prodigals, a single mother, my dream now is to become a vessel for all prodigals and sinners, the bruised reeds that Jesus would never have broken, because they knew already just how broken they already were. I want to help the contrite hearts, the ones Jesus loves; just like he loved me when I was a secular sinner, later when I was a self-righteous "Pharisee," a broken down mother of an estranged adult daughter, then as a sinner-saved-by-grace prodigal, as a cancer survivor, and now, the broken mother of a estranged adult children, and an abandoned wife who was served divorce papers, and dragged into divorce court against my will.  I look for people who are just like I used to be, because I get it. 

I look for bruised reeds because I am one.

 If Man Says It, Think The Opposite

     There is a Scripture that is one of my favorites in Isaiah.  I'm sure I've mentioned it a thousand times.  My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above yours."   Isaiah 55:8-9.  Maybe I didn't translate it word for word, but thought for thought.  In the era of Social media, everyone is a philosopher creating all kinds of quotes out there looking for their viral post.  I've had a few, like "Love and compassion are gifts from GOD but empathy is earned," or "Failure is the flour in humble pie and the stepping stones to success."  Well, I had an epiphany the other day while driving.  I had Air1 on the radio and I heard the lyrics in a song, "You won't have peace until you can let go of tomorrow."  It hit me as if a Mack truck had completely side swiped me while I wasn't looking.  It was like the Holy Spirit shined a truth in my eyes that I always knew, but never knew at the same time.

   I have feared tomorrow for the past ten years in the worst way.  I have feared that I'll never amount to anything in Christ, and yet, I have feared success even worse.  I have feared I'd lose my house, be cut off from the hand that feeds me, lose my children to the devil's minions, anything and everything, and yet, all this time, I never enjoyed today because of that fear of tomorrow.  All my life, even from childhood, I've always looked forward to the next thing or better days, because the present day's evil was constant. I've suffered emotional trauma since I was six-years old, when it began with my mother.  

   When I got out from under her, in college, then I looked forward to getting married and living happily ever after. Well, we all know that young and stupid isn't an expression, it's a fact.  I feel sorry for young people because they have no idea of the trauma headed their way, neither did I.  When I did finally marry, for a short time, things got better.  Then I started looking forward to being a mother, and while I was popping out babies, I always looked forward to the next one, until I knew number 8 was enough.   Then, I looked forward to grandchildren decades later.  When I received my "calling" as they say, I looked forward to being a successful writer, making a positive impact in people's lives, all the while being smacked down with cancer, divorce, and the birdies leaving the nest.  One thing I tell people is that if I had known how much it was going to hurt when the birdies left the nest, I may not have laid so many eggs! But, I had a bright future to look forward to, or did I?  Divorce and doubt plagued me and has for ten years.

   It was when my husband divorced me, which I never saw coming, that was when I really began dreading the future. Every other year, empty nest syndrome got closer and closer, and now, it's almost close enough to touch. Life almost became unbearable because I feared being all alone in this big empty house. I needed a back up plan, and a walk along a North Carolina beach was the answer.  So, my back up plan is the sell my house when number 8 goes out on his own, buy a Winnebago and wake up on a different beach every morning. That seems like a future I can handle if I have to handle a future all alone.  

    You know when you have thought a certain way all of your life, it's nearly impossible to change that thought pattern, well, I've always counted on the future to be better than the present and the past.  I never realized just how good the past was until it was in the past.  After I heard that one line in that song, I looked up Scripture and how many times GOD says to remember the past, and how many times GOD said to worry about tomorrow, and it hit me, again. Man thinks the opposite of GOD.  Notice just how many times GOD wants us to remember the past and what He has done for us, and how many times He wants us to look forward to the future.  There is no comparison.  He tells us that He will deliver us in the future, but over two hundred times He tells us to remember the past.  

   Being a social media person that I am, I can't count how many times I've read posts that say to let go of yesterday, especially since my husband left me, during all these grieving years of watching him walk away from everything we planned and hoped for, as well as my children walking away from our home and GOD. It says to remember four times as many times as the word tomorrow in the Scriptures.  YHVH does not want us to forget the past, He wants us to always remember it and count on Him for deliverance for that which ails us, and grief is what ails me.  Fear of the future of tomorrow is what ails me.  Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow for today has enough worries of it's own.  I don't how many times I told my high school friend that, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, meaning just what Jesus said. Today has enough problems of its own, don't worry about tomorrow. I would say this to her whenever she would get all worked up about something she thought someone would try to do to harm her. Yet, I'm guilty of worrying about next year's tomorrows. 

     I never worried about the next 24 hours. I'm terribly guilty about worrying about the tomorrows of years from now.  

    That is even crazier than worrying what will happen in forty-eight hours.  YHVH GOD has always come through for me in the past, and yet, I continue to picture the worse case scenario in my head of what the future may look like since the year my husband first threatened to divorce me after he moved out.  When each child left, and number 7 just moved out recently, I've dreaded the year 2027 like there is no tomorrow.  Pun not intended, well, maybe intended just a little.  I need to let go of tomorrow's tomorrow if I ever want to have any peace.  I hope if you fear tomorrow's tomorrow, you can find your peace in thinking the opposite of man, remember the past, and fear not tomorrow.