WHEN GOD HANGS YOU OUT TO DRY

Back in the day, before glass bottles and wine cellars, wine was kept in wine skins, animal hides.   When the wine skin was empty, it usually was hung in a corner to dry out.  The wine skins at one point held happiness in it, but now it was emptied, all used up, no longer representing glad tidings.  So, it's left hanging in a corner, forgotten, useless to man.  It's best day is over, or is it? When is the last time you have felt as if you were useless wine skins, hanging in the corner with no one paying any attention to you, as if you did not exist anymore?  Maybe right now? Your heart used to be so filled with the love of Jesus, so much so, that it spilled over and you shared it by pouring into other people.

Eventually, having poured out all the love you had in your heart, with no one is filling it back up with reciprocal love, it becomes a dried out, emptied.  Those you poured all the wine of your heart all over, gladly received it, but none wanted to return it.  Some even abused you because of it. You brought gladness, now, you have no more to give. We are left to ourselves, so alone, so isolated that we even start to think that GOD has also abandoned us.  We did as we were told.  We gave when we weren't asked to give.  We loved those who did not love us, but GOD had commanded us to love.  We did not strike back when struck by those we gave love to, we just assumed, like GOD's Word says, "It is mine to avenge."  So, we sat back and  waited, and we waited, and waited, and then we waited some more.  Time passed, more time passed, so much time that we gave up any hope of getting love back from those whom we so freely gave.  Days, weeks, months and in some cases years go by; no vengeance, no change of heart.

Next step is the obvious, that we  must have got it wrong.  GOD didn't really tell us to give love to that person, it must have been the enemy of GOD.  He must have set a trap for us, knowing a fall was imminent.  Total confusion sets in. We can't seem to hear correctly from GOD.  We question everything we did for the last few years, until we come to the conclusion that our purpose, our dream, our goal was completely wrong, all this time. We just wasted six years doing what we thought GOD led us to do, and now we have no goal, no dream, no real purpose, and definitely are of no use in the Kingdom of GOD, because we can't discern GOD's instructions from the devil's traps.

Now we have two choices, bolt and turn away from GOD, or cower in the corner, hoping GOD will see our bruises and heal them. Bolting is not an option, because we know that there is no life outside of GOD.  We cower, we cry, we plead, we beg, so much so that our eyes sting and become so swollen it changes our appearance, not just for a few minutes, but for days at a time.  GOD still hasn't noticed or healed our bruises, and we are bewildered. Sometimes, even reading the Bible is like pouring salt on our wounds.  We've read all the promises. We’ve written them, memorized them, taken them to heart, but yet to have seen them fulfilled. Now, they are just words, words that actually hurt, now, because you waited and waited and waited.

You know every crevice and corner and every promise that reside in the safe places of those beloved pages. Still, after a while, those familiar words are just that, just words. They don't carry any weight, anymore, because you never saw them come to pass as you hoped.  Now, that hope which used to bring joy, now just brings pain, because that hope, you now realize only led to disappointment, night after night after pillow-soaking night.   

No healing comes. Now what? Stop breathing? That's not an option.  Stop living? That's not an option. Start hating back? That's not an option.  Ah, numb the pain with some authentic mind-numbing medicinal wine of our own.  That works, for a while, until GOD says, "That wasn't an option, either, so Stop!"  Getting angry at GOD didn't work, and you surely did shake your fist way too many times. Then guilt sets in, especially when someone lays that You-have-no-right-to-be-angry-at-GOD, guilt trip on you. 

With no warning, when you aren't expecting it, when you've decided in your mind to give up, walk away from everything and everyone, after you've erased all your social media and decided to accept your fate as is, hoping the few years you may have left will pass quickly, one moment in time, one thing leads to another, and suddenly, you just happen upon a sermon on You Tube, and you discover that there is a corner you missed.  Even though you have read that Bible from cover to cover several dozens of times, GOD still has a surprise for you. There is a corner you missed, a stanza, a plea from a psalmist who has just lived your life, and is dying inside just like you are, right now.  You're exhausted, and you think you've exhausted the Word of GOD, until you realize, refreshment is where you weren't looking. Psalm 119 and Psalm 88 both have what I call a “Job’s Princess life.”  It’s a life of sorrow from start to what we think will be finish.

That's all it took.  Someone, knows what you feel like. GOD made sure that someone made it into His Word, because of this day.  He was going to refresh you and refill your wine skin with new wine.  It's just enough to draw you back to His Word to find more corners you didn't know were there. Then you realize, GOD not only saw your bruises, but He felt them, and He was just waiting for you to stop doing that mind-numbing activity that blocked His work in your life, and you are back.  At least until the next time, and you know there will be a next time, but like this time, next time He will again, bring you to a corner in His Word you didn't know existed.  Each time you learn to trust more and more, until such a time that you are ready to help those other dried out wine skins who feel left abandoned in the corners of their lives.  I ran across this Psalm one day when I was feeling lost and so abandoned by everyone including GOD.  It blew my mind. I thought I knew all of Scripture, but GOD has a surprise up His sleeve. So, for those of you drowning in your ocean's amount of tears, this is for you. 

Psalm 88

May my prayer come before you;
    turn your ear to my cry.

³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
    and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
    I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
    like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
    who are cut off from your care.

⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
    in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
    you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.^[d]
8 You have taken from me my closest friends
    and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
⁹     my eyes are dim with grief.

I call to you, Lord, every day;
    I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
    Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
    your faithfulness in Destruction^[e]?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
    or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

¹³ But I cry to you for help, Lord;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, Lord, do you reject me
    and hide your face from me?

¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
    I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
    your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
    they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
    darkness is my closest friend.

The Bible as a Treasure Chest

As many of you know, I'm an Old Testament buff, in fact, I buff it out so much that the more I buff it out, the more brighter the shine that comes out  to near blind me and confuse me.  The brightness of that shine of the Old Testament is so illuminating that my eyes can't comprehend it, and my mind cannot filter it.  There is so much there that the human mind is incapable of comprehending all of it in this lifetime.  Yet, it is so highly ignored by most Christians. 

Most Christians these days are New Testament Christians only.  Yeah, they see the Old Testament as a good story book, a good poetry, a good  intro to the Gospels, but they don't understand, the Old Testament is the cake under the frosting.  If you don't have the cake, there is no frosting. Most of the Old Testament Scriptures that are quoted over and over again don't even show the tiniest fraction of the whole picture.  Everyone has their favorites, but their palates are so accustomed to the taste of the favorites, that the people don't want to try and find new flavors.

While praying about this and asking GOD what can I write about the Old Testament gifts, I saw a treasure box.  Go with me here for a second.  Open the treasure box, and there is a tray on the top of the box that holds all the greenbacks of the US Treasury.  Sure, those green backs are good. They spend like real money, and they can buy you anything you need or want, however, the gold and jewels that those greenbacks are based upon are underneath that tray.  You know they are there, and if you lift the tray you can see the beauty underneath.  The real problem is that unless you take out the tray, and pick up each piece and carefully examine each jewel and the glow of each piece of gold, you are only getting 1/4th of the treasure box.  A quarter of the treasure is good, it's enough to make you rich in Christ, but how rich do you want to be? 

Too many Christians are settling for that top tray, because it's good enough.  Good enough was never good enough for me. That is why I got in trouble with my children and my husband.  They think that I was never satisfied with them, because they were not good enough.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes, I set the bar high, but so didn't GOD when he came here as a baby in a manager and when Jesus stretched out his arms and died on that cross for you and me.

 Psalm 119 is the perfect example of the gold standard of the Old Testament.  The jewels in this Psalm is in the poetry.  Yeah, I know it doesn't rhyme, and that's because we don't speak Hebrew.  The Psalm is divided into 22 sections, each stanza begins with a Hebrew letter.   Recently, I started studying some of the Hebrew alphabet.  I'm telling you, GOD loves letters, but even more so, He loves numbers.  Each Hebrew letter has a specific meaning in Hebrew, it doesn't just represent a sound.  Each letter has a number assigned to it, and each number has a meaning behind it.  For example, 1 Represents GOD, as GOD is one, the only One.  My favorite letter in Dalet, the 4th letter, it means door.  My favorite number is 8, which means new beginning, and if anyone needs that, it's me.  There is such beauty in GOD's creation and the story of His people.  Knowing some nice OT Scriptures as comfort verses is like eating beans in a can when GOD offers us an entire banquet table in which we can feast.  Not knowing the Hebrew alphabet is again, like only tasting the frosting and not the cake underneath.  The English Alphabet is good enough to create the words that teach you the Gospel, but the Hebrew Alphabet is the gold and jewels that will make you far richer in Christ than you could ever imagine.

Might I encourage you to take your Bible, learn it in Chronological order in historical context. Learn the culture behind the stories and the people, and you will find such treasure in the truth and knowledge of GOD that you've been missing all this time.  Not knowing the Hebrew alphabet is again, like only tasting the frosting and not the cake underneath.  The English Alphabet is good enough to create the words that teach you the Gospel, but the Hebrew Alphabet is the gold and jewels that will make you far richer in Christ than you could ever imagine.

I'm working on my final book, Living as a Jeremiah in a Job's World, and I hope to have it done by the end of the year.  It has three sections, The BODY ~ A Reason to Believe, The SOUL ~ A Reason to Hope, and The SPIRIT ~ A Reason to Change.  The Old Testament is not the book of a wrathful GOD, it's the book of the Merciful GOD pleading with His people to turn back to Him.  He is doing that very same thing today.  When reading the Prophets, I do not picture GOD speaking to an ancient people, threatening them within an inch of their life, I picture GOD speaking to His people today, in His church.  I see GOD calling out His remnant saying;

"Here I am, I'm over here. You've been looking over there, and that is just a reflection of me in a mirror.  Turn around and see the real thing, the full figure of Who I am."

What would Mom think?

(This is another recycled post from my previous blog right after my mother died. This was how I processed the hurt.)

         To quote a classic line in a classic movie, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," anymore. Sorry for the language, if some of you are offended, but there is no other appropriate response. I have arrived home from my two week trip to Hell up north. Yes, I said Hell up north. I had to go home to watch my mother die, then manage through her funeral, my first one, in a receiving line. It was brutal. The absolute worst part of that trip was being there with my siblings and all of her friends, after I did the unthinkable. 

       Confession time! I read Mom's emails that she sent to my siblings and her friends about me. I was only interested in what she said about me, and I got an eye full. WOW! I knew my Mom could be a Jekyle and Hyde, but I never thought more Hyde than Jekyl. Mind you, I love my mom, like most daughters do. I'm going to miss her, like anyone else, and a part of me has died with her. I, however, understood my mom, maybe even better than my five siblings, because I am a chip off the old block. I am exactly like her. We clashed a whole lot while I was growing up, and they were nuclear. 

       Now, that's not uncommon, we all go through spells, some worse than others, but the stories I could tell would curl or uncurl your hair. I won't even dare to go into any details out of respect, just know this, my mom was reacting to six decades of her mom rejecting her. My grandmother was reacting to nine decades of her mom rejecting her. Yeah, we keep it in the family all right. I'm the only one who gets it, and gets another chance to get it right.

   

        Mom never received unconditional love and acceptance, unless she was pregnant, and that new baby loved her and made her feel complete. Life for the toddler above that baby didn't go so well when a new one came, the older ones were virtually invisible to mom. It all went south from there. He said, she said, what does it matter what stories are told from whoever's perspective? Six children were irreparably damaged from their dysfunctional life and marriage.

        When the marriage ended, my mother demanded, within inches of our lives, total devotion and loyalty to her, and we were REQUIRED to hate our father. She made life a living hell for us, because she didn't have Jesus. She taught us to reject people before they get a chance to reject you. Guess who resisted! Every little fit Mom took, I got blamed for, because I wouldn't put up with her nonsense, accusing us of being out to get her on our father's behalf. 

   

    GOD called me to something different! Jesus called me out of that rejection cycle, and gave me a chance to live my mother's history all over again and right the wrongs. Let me tell you, I'm doing my best, but definitely failing most of the time. There is no mistake so big that we can make that GOD can't fix. Phew! What a relief to know that. You know, it took Jacob in Genesis one hundred years to finally get it right? I'm only at fifty-six, so I have some play room, here.

        The last few years have been so rough for me. I pretty much had stopped calling mom, because the conversations were mostly negative. She scoffed at everything I did, every word I said. I think she favored my husband over me. She disapproved, and she always let me know it. Whenever I spoke about my writing or my books, she couldn't believe GOD could call me for anything special. She didn't believe, because she had her own pre-conceived, but erroneous concept of who is GOD. He wasn't the miracle working, personal, and very involved GOD, the loving unconditionally GOD that the Bible tells us. Therefore, if she didn't believe in the miraculous GOD, she surely didn't believe I was anybody special to Him.

       This week, if finally realized that I've been in prison all this time. I've been in "What Would Mom Think Prison." I've been trapped by a spirit of unbelief, knowing anything I told mom about my writing or work for GOD meant absolutely nothing to her, and she did not approve. In fact, I knew in my heart, regardless of what I did, mom would not approve. She even said, "I disapprove" over and over for the five and a half decades that I knew her.

      I never realized until today, just how hard I've been working to accomplish the impossible. I've been trying to get mom to like me, to approve of what I do, to see that I had real worth in the Kingdom of heaven. That was never going to happen. I did not even realize that in the back of my head, while I always contemplated my future, I would always think, "What would Mom think?" Immediately, I could hear her scoffing in my head, knowing full well, that was what I was facing.

       I'm free, now. I never have to think that way again. Now, GOD can do whatever He wants or planned to do with me, and I don't have to worry about Mom 'poking' fun at my delusions of grandeur. I wonder just how many billions of daughters and sons out there are trapped in the dungeon of disapproval, and who will like me, finally be able to breath the fresh air of freedom.

No one is promised tomorrow 
so make sure you logout!

(Addendum: I wrote this last year August 16, 2019, right before my mother's funeral in my previous Blog: The Woman at the Well)

     Tomorrow, I will bury my mother with my five siblings, of which I wrote in an earlier post. It was an unexpected death, not sudden, but surely unexpected. Cancer came in and humbled my mom, because sometimes, that is how GOD has to do it. People say that GOD never sends cancer, well, I happen to disagree. The Bible is clear that GOD sends calamity. 

  Maybe it is not done by His hand specifically, but He is ultimately Sovereign, and nothing comes by us or to us without His prior knowledge and permission.  We read in the first chapter of Job that GOD was bragging on his faithful servant, Job, when the devil approached GOD and accused him of being faithful only because he had everything served to him on a silver platter, to quote a contemporary colloquialism. GOD let Satan stricken Job taking everything away from him, children, livestock, servants, and all his earthly goods. When Job did not curse GOD, the devil had something else up his sleeve, PAIN! It's one thing to lose all our earthly goods, it's a whole new ball game when physical pain and discomfort torture us, wearing us out. Again, Satan had to seek permission from GOD, and it was granted, however the devil was to spare Job's life. (Hence, the devil has power to take life, according to this Scripture. Remember that little point!) The devil has to seek permission for everything he does, so the devil gets the blame, but GOD gets the glory in it, if we let Him. (Romans 8:28) The devil hit Job with everything he had, and yet, Job did not curse GOD.

     Now, Job may not have cursed GOD, but boy oh boy, he surely did complain, and who wouldn't? This is where GOD becomes an even bigger GOD, who can handle all our complaints, and He actually prefers that we do come to Him, and Him alone. Job was not suicidal, but he cursed the day he was born. Things went from bad to worse when Job's "friends" instead of grieving with him, accused him of deserving of this punishment from GOD. There was no mention of the devil in those days, so all things came from GOD's hand, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The mere thought that something so dreadful just happening upon a righteous man, for no reason other than to resolve a bet between GOD and the evil one was simply unheard of, unthinkable, and quite frankly, disturbing beyond human comprehension. My mother's cancer came like that, out of nowhere, unexpected, unannounced, and unheard of, as cancer was not in our family history. I guess we all thought we were safe. Cancer runs in families, right? If no one in your family or line of ancestors had cancer, well, then you were going to dodge that bullet, or so we like to think. 

   How wrong we are. I was the first in my family to contract it, a very very rare form, parotid cancer. Only one in every 500,000 women, my age contract this kind of cancer. It is even rare for older men, let alone a middle-aged woman. This I knew was from GOD, because I sort of got a heads-up on it. I believed that the Holy Spirit warned me two years ahead of time that cancer was coming to humble me and keep me humble. Again, I wrote about this ordeal in an earlier blog. Cancer, Death, and Humble Pie, Among Others . 

   My cancer was stage one, so easily defeated with a little radiation HELL! It was slightly under six months of hell for me, but it did the trick. It drew me closer to GOD. It taught me more of Who He is and His grace being sufficient in my weakness. It had the intended purposed affect on me, and now, I'm a "ticking" time-bomb with all the radiation I did receive, thus perpetually feeding me humble pie for the rest of my days here on this planet. My mom's cancer was quite a bit different. It had an appetite for her body that was ravenous, and it fed on her like a famished lion. In less than twelve weeks, my mom was gone.  This cancer was brutal, tumors grew like wildfire and burned like it also. My mom suffered terribly for about eight weeks. It was a suffering one would never want to watch their parent endure. I learned that it is just as hard to watch one's parent suffer as it is one's child. As would any child, I rushed home from one thousand miles away to be with my mother in her worst hour of suffering, and to be with her and my siblings as she exited this world and entered the next. I don't like to use the word dying, I'd much rather call it graduation or demotion. In my mother's case, I truly think it was a graduation, as I did not know her spiritual status. I did, however, receive what I thought was revelation from GOD that He had her up there in heaven, and all was well, now. The minute after she died, John 3:16 popped up as the first tweet in my Twitter feed. There was one other thing that I believed was from GOD, and that was what I was reading the second she took her last breath. I just so happened to be in 2 Chronicles 33, reading about King Manasseh. 

     Now, that was a bad king, so bad that he caused the final judgment from the Lord, to come upon Judah, the southern kingdom in 586 B.C. Both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom had turned their back on GOD and worshiped other gods, and that was the least of their sins, from a human perspective. There were far more evil things they did that you can find out with a little investigative work on your own, but be prepared to have your stomach turned upside down. King Manasseh, though, he took the cake, and the frosting, and the candles, when it comes to evil. It is said of him that he lined the streets of Jerusalem with the blood from one end to the other. It is even reported that he had the prophet Isaiah hung on a wooden X and sawed in half from the bottom up. Now, that's a scene I can't even fathom to visualize, nor would I want to. You really can't get much more evil than that.  Both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles speak of just how evil was the son of the good king, Hezekiah, but only 2 Chronicles tells of Manasseh's repentance. When God wants to humble a person, He knows just what it will take, and a hook in Manasseh's nose and bronze fetters on his feet did the trick. In his affliction, King Manasseh called out to the LORD. Now, we humans would have said, "tough cookies, bud, you deserve this." Aren't we glad that we are not GOD and GOD is not us, that we don't think like GOD and GOD doesn't think like us? One small act of humbling himself before the LORD, a sincere act of repentance (a change of heart), and GOD restored the evil king, who was immediately transposed into a good king. He proved his repentance was genuine as he went about restoring Jerusalem, the Temple, removing the wooden idols, and demanding that the people worship only GOD. It's an amazing story of just how big and wide is the Grace of GOD with one simple, sincere act of humiliation before him.  

      As I mentioned, I was reading these verses just as my mom took her last breath, and that is no coincidence. I truly believe that GOD wanted me to know that all the sharp words my mom used were thrown in the deepest part of the ocean, gone forever, and not held against her. Let me tell you, she had a tongue sharper than than any finely tuned razor blade. She could chop a person to pieces with it with no effort at all on her part, and in no time flat. She wasn't just a Italian Yankee firecracker, she was a nuclear explosion when her fuse was lit. The day after she she died, I happened to stumble upon some of her emails she wrote to my siblings about me and my children. After reading about twenty of them, I had seen more than my eyes should have seen. There is NO question in my mind why my siblings hated me so much.  Mom was the fuel that fed that fire of fury She had said the most dreadfully horrible things about me and my children that no decent relative should say about another, let alone a mother about her own child and grandchildren. I had no idea that who I thought was my supportive mother was not only not so supportive, but she had hoped to see me fail. According to these emails, she hated me and even went as far as to take my ex-husband's side when he abandoned me.  Maybe she even got some pleasure from it. I will never understand this, but here is where that BIG huge Grace of GOD comes into play.  My mom's heart was like every human heart, deceptively evil, hard to even fathom (Jeremiah 17:9), and GOD, knowing that her time was coming soon.  Instead of letting her evil heart drag her into hell, he gave her an opportunity to be so afflicted that her only option and hope would be to call out to GOD, as did King Manasseh. The Bible says in several places, "Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved," and I heard many times during that brief time of severe suffering, her calling on the name of Jesus for relief and mercy.  

    I could hold a grudge against my mother, but what purpose would that serve? My tongue is just as sharp as hers, and I've ripped a few people apart in my day, even in recent days, when my fuse was lit. It's a terrible sin, but it's the human condition. We let our emotions dictate our words and actions when under a great deal of stress or distress. I am no angel and in need of just as much mercy from GOD as was my mom. My mom didn't get a chance to apologize to me, but GOD let me see just how He works in forcing an apology, even a silent one out of one's heart on their deathbed. I, on the other hand have plenty of opportunities to apologize, still, and I plan to make that a common habit, hoping for a little understanding a great deal of mercy from those I've offended. I could hate that woman for the damage she had done to me all my growing up years, and there is still plenty of damage left over, but she is not that woman anymore. She is a new creation, a whole person, loving, happy and pleasant in Glory.  I never saw my mother pleasant and happy.  I can't wait to meet the woman she is now, and I will have the chance, sooner rather than later. Sin is sin, whether we fall into it, or commit it with malice-a-forethought, and we are in need of forgiveness from GOD for every sin, past, present and future.  Here is where GOD looks at the righteousness of Jesus and his work on the cross, and not the decades worth of sin that we either fall into, or plot in vain. Grace is not a license to sin, but in the end, if we do take that license to sin, in the end, GOD knows our true hearts, even if we hide it from the world.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I see this suffering as a gift from GOD. He will use it to bring us closer to Him either in this life or the next.   I would like to believe that He took pity on me and my mom and taught us BOTH a very valuable lesson in how GOD not only humbles us in our sin, but by doing that, He wipes away 87 years of evil behavior in one instant, and that proves to us just how BIG and WIDE is His grace and mercy.

STOP Trying to Be Just Like Jesus. 

Go for the Next Best Thing!

I know what you are going to say. There will be those who shoot for perfection who tell us that we are COMMANDED to be like Christ, (which we are not) Or some will say, "That's right, we should be like Paul."    Ehhhhh!  Both are wrong.      You have to know how I think to know who I'm going for here, and if anyone has read any of my blogs, they'll know I'm shooting for David! Let me explain.

Do you think that Jesus knows that we cannot be like him or think like him? (Isaiah 55:8-9) Jesus did NOT have a sinful nature. He was fully human but without a sinful nature. Well, maybe he had just a tiny bit inside just so that he knew the battle. Theologically speaking, many say that GOD put Jesus in Mary's womb because the sinful nature comes from the father. I tend to believe that. Who was called on the carpet first, and who took the first bite? When did Adam and Eve realize they were naked, after her bite or his? Case closed. Now Jesus had to be the seed of a woman, like Genesis 3 tells us, therefore he had to be from an egg in her ovaries. Now, Mary had an earthly father, thus, she had a sinful nature. So, if we are going to get technical here, like DNA and stuff, yes, Jesus could have inherited just a tiny bit of a sinful nature, yet he NEVER acted upon it. This is very controversial, because many say he was perfect and without sin because he was created pure, but Grampie Heli’'s seed was in that ovary, so, he was FULLY human. The point is that Jesus NEVER sinned. It wasn't because he couldn't, as in not physically able, it was because he couldn't in order to fulfill the purpose for which he was sent.

In my personal opinion, and I’m NOT quoting any Bible Scripture, this is just my opinion, although I love Paul as a brother in Christ, if I was going to church with him, we would NOT be friends. You can love your sibling in Christ and not be buddies that hang out.  I surely would NOT hang out with Paul.  I appreciate the fact that GOD chose him and trained him, and used him to write 1/3 of the New Testament, but I think we Christians have taken Paul way out of context and follow him as if he was as perfect as Christ.  Every word he says, we hang on to it as if it were LAW, to be strictly followed, NO exceptions, lest we become heretics.  If you want to be like that, feel free, but don’t expect us to be friends either.  People who attain to be like Jesus or Paul are looking for perfection in themselves and demanding it from themselves and others, thus when they “achieve” as much as Jesus or Paul in them to their own standards, that ugly little pride virus attacks their heart, and it’s damaged sometimes for good.

Paul’s words are for sure Divinely Inspired, but they are NOT Leviticus, and many if not most New Testament Christians treat his epistles as if it was the New Testament’s version of Leviticus. (The book of Mosaic Law in the Pentateuch)  Those people drive me nuts, and do you want to know why they drive me nuts?  I will tell you.  It’s because I am a freaking mess.  I am a total failure, a dweeb, a woman subject to my hormones, menopause, which is PMS on steroids.  I’m alone, a reject, been one all my life, therefore, I am subject to the devil screaming in my head that I’m a loser and always will be.  The devil screams but Jesus whispers using the Holy Spirit, that’s why it’s so hard to hear him sometimes.  You know we, like our children, have selective hearing as much as they do with our Heavenly Father as they do with us. We choose what to hear from Jesus, most of the time, it has to be to our liking, or we ad-lib a little and throw our opinion in there.  People have said they find comfort in Paul’s epistles.  Well I don’t, I never have.

People say that Paul suffered greatly, and he knows how weak we are, he knows the trials and temptations of a sinful nature.  (Does this sound like anything you’ve heard before only substitute the name JESUS instead)  Do you see what I mean?  Yeah, Paul suffered, he was brilliant, he had a sinful nature, he despaired at times, (although he barely mentions it), and he triumphed through GOD grace which was sufficient for his weaknesses.  But let me tell you what Paul did NOT have.  He did not  have a XX chromosome.  He has NO clue what it’s like to be a woman, a wife, or a mother.  Jesus does though, because he’s GOD.  I think enough has been said here about Paul, with respect, of course. 

So, who is the next best thing if it’s not Paul?  Duh, it’s David.  The Bible is full of screw-ups that GOD used to prove His grace and power to work through humans who were a freaking mess.  Jacob is my favorite mess, because it took 100 years for him to get it right.  If I was going to live that long, it would take me longer.  David, on the other hand was a bit more of a mess than Jacob.  Buckle your seat belt, because I’m going into the deep dive of David’s sewerage. 

David, besides being an adulterer, and a really bad commander-in-chief, setting up an honorable guy in the front lines in order to hide the fact that he was a man, and well,  I won't go there, but let your imagination picture what I'm thinking, was an adulterer and murderer LONG before Bathsheba, because before he got to Ziglag, on his prodigal road, he already had three wives. He collected more after taking the throne, and even had concubines.  Ask Absalom.  That makes him the adulterer.  Stealing another man’s wife, they makes him a creep. As far as fatherhood, well, shoot, you can’t get worse than David, ask Tamar and Absalom, again.  Well, maybe King Manasseh, but David was a horrendous father.  David fell into despair so many times, we can’t count them all, but the Book of Psalms exhibits quite a few of them.  Thank GOD he wrote those times down, or we’d never make it.  David had a prodigal road, yep, he left GOD.  I know, you don’t believe me. Well check out 1 Samuel 27, the very first verse and tell me what you see.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

David was promised the throne by GOD and anointed by Samuel one of the great ones, and yet, he believed that Saul would kill him so he hid behind enemy lines.  He became a traitor. He was a traitor for 16 months.  He lived with the Philistines, he answered to a Philistine general and he conquered land and goods for the Philistine king.  In our constitution, that constitutes TREASON, and is punishable by death.  But, if you want to know the very very very WORST thing about David, read that entire chapter 27.  Read it very carefully.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

What did David do that was despicable?  He murdered for profit and he made sure that NO ONE was alive who could fink on him to the Philistine general, who was his commander, thus he kept quite a bit of the take for himself.  So, to put it mildly, David was a MASS murderer, killing innocent babies, women, children, and men who were minding their own business, just trying to make a living and take care of their families.  Albeit they were pagans, however, and HERE is the clincher, GOD never instructed David to take over those villages, he was acting up on his own desire to whip up quite the fortune for himself, and to prove himself a great warrior for his PHILISTINE general, and he became quite prideful.  He was so prideful, that he was even to willing to go to war with the Philistines against his own people.  GOD’s people.  Think on that right now.  Considering what’s happening now, and who are the treasonous traitors running their shadow government, who have done their best to overthrow a duly elected and loved by tens of millions, President, the best one we've ever had, where does David measure up?  How do you like those people?  Say, like the Clinton's who are reputed as expert suicider’s.

  There is a LONG list of Clinton dead floating around, and thank GOD we don’t know the half of it.  SO, now what do you think of David?  Not the stellar guy, huh?  So, if he was like that, why should we attain to be like him?  That’s simple, what did GOD call him, “ a man after My own heart,” and in the book of Acts 7:46 it says that David enjoyed favor with GOD.  That’s the ticket for me. 

Every time I feel like crap about myself, and that is VERY often, I take a visit down David’s memory lane, and I shoot for being a woman after GOD’s own heart, knowing fully just how far down in the bottom of the barrel David had to climb back up.  GOD doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, but he did give David a piece of his own medicine when He allowed Ziglag to be burned and ALL of the women and children to be taken hostage.  That’s in chapter 29 of 1^st Samuel.  Check it out.  That was when David “came to his sense,” like the prodigal son in Luke 15. 

So, now after this great revelation, I feel so much at peace, because I’ve stopped making Paul and Jesus my example of how I should perform, and I’ve made David my example of how I should seek after GOD’s heart with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength, because I want to love Him that much. There was one other thing that David had that I have, crazy faith that believes that if I can hold out long enough, I can take down that 1,000 foot giant, because Allen means stone. I've lost a lot of friends over that crazy faith, and I've given up on it more times than I can count. Every once in a while GOD will do something that will fill my faith bank back up to full and over-flowing. 

Cancer,  Death , 
and Good Humble Pie 

~Among Others~

   Eight years ago, I remember GOD calling me to begin a writing career. Of course, I thought that was the most ludicrous notion that I had ever heard. After all, I don't think I received higher than a D in any of my college writing classes. So, I said to GOD, "But GOD, I'm not a writer, I'm not a novelist, I haven't a clue how to do that." I distinctly heard in my spirit, before those frightful words of rebuttal left my lips,

   "Kristina, you are who I make you to be." Oh, yeah, that did it. I had no argument with that.

     You see, we can argue with GOD all we want, but we will never win. Here's the beauty, He doesn't mind how much we do it, until we learn that we aren't going win, and we can trust Him with that which we know we can’t handle. Eventually, we realize that He has been trying to teach our slow brains that we can’t handle it, but He can. 

    Another day, I remember being on one of my five-mile autumn walks, and  I saw in my head in the future, a very successful author who had my face. The terror that ran over me on my walk nearly face planted me right there and oddly enough, right in front of the local library. GOD has a funny sense of humor. That fear gripped my heart because I know just how much of a screw-up I have been and still am. Again, I had a rebuttal for GOD, and before the words,  

    "Oh, no, GOD, what will I do if I am successful. I'm sure to ruin it. That kind of success like that ruins everyone. What if I get too full of myself? What is to stop me from making it all about me?

    Again, the answer was swift and only took two nouns and a conjunction, "Cancer and death." 

   “Oh, yeah, that'll do it." The Bible is clear, storms come from GOD’s permissive and sometimes planned will. The crook in your lot that totally messed you up came from GOD. He may have used other people to put the bend in the road that caused you to crash and burn. He did it because you were probably going the wrong way at warp speed and didn't see the train wreck coming right at you.

   Two years later, I was knee deep in radiation hell, having all pride I had built up in my first book, finished, with “rave” reviews. (I sometimes wonder if there was more wrong with those who reviewed my book than me in the intelligence department.) burned out of me.  So, one book down, another started and an amazing one at that. God gave me a story that was sure to be an epic. Right after I finished the rough draft, I spent the next six months in radiation hell getting the snot burned out of me, literally. 

   Sadly, though, GOD had more sense-of-self I needed to be rid of, because having bounced back beating cancer and surviving radiation hell, I still had a garden needing to be weeded after a longest winter of my life. So, he ruffled up the garden paradise of my home and family life. With a stroke, dual cancers, a few days past the pain of radiation hell, I was basking in victory. With no real warning, none that I paid attention to, because I never thought divorce could happen to me, my husband informed me during the last few weeks of my cancer treatments that he was filing for divorce when my treatments were over after twenty-nine years of marriage. 

    A year after that, another major heart crushing rejection came along to seriously send me under the bed hiding behind my cat afraid to even come out of my room, lest something worse happen. Rejection is one of GOD's greatest tools, not only to protect us from those who are not good for us, but to protect us from ourselves and that ugly human disease called, P-R-I-D-E. It is so sneaky. Even in all that, it still snuck up on me. You'd think I would have had my fill of humble pie with my family shattered, dual cancers, divorce pending, and a crushed and broken heart should have humbled me, but nope. He had one more lesson. Vindication!

   You see, the Bible promises us that He will vindicate us from those who do us harm, even if sometimes He was the one who sent them to do just that. Boy, I surely needed some vindication, or rather thought that I deserved vindication. Do you see it? Pride entered even through my brokenness. I was so broken by those who GOD sent in my life to hurt me, on purpose, to keep me humble, but now as the "victim," I felt I deserved some Heaven sent vindication, and some serious justice to feel satisfied. There is a difference between seeking justice for a person’s well-being, and seeking vindication for our bruised egos. When we plead for justice, it must be with an attitude of needing deliverance from something that is oppressing us, with the Father-forgive-them-for-they-know-not-what-they-do attitude and heart behind it. When we seek the self-satisfying kind of justice and vindication, that is usually nothing but pure anger and bitterness coated in pride.

    Now, I am cancer survivor who is well aware that just like the winter, cancer always comes back, especially the rare kind I was gifted with, even if it takes decades. Yes, cancer was a gift, and anyone who drew closer to GOD during theirs understands that. It is, however, a permanent, unwelcomed guest that never really leaves, but lies dormant in my cells, ready to leap at a moment’s notice, and all just to keep forcing that humble pie down my throat. 

     

  So, here I am eight years later, working on my eighth book, (eight meaning new beginning in Hebrew numerology) Google-able, yet, still a nobody. As a mother of eight in a small town, my house isn't all glass, but still too much of it is. I can't walk down main street without one of my children's friends letting them know that they saw me tripping over my own two left feet on that sidewalk, again. Failure in obscurity is fine with me. After eleven years in the fiery furnace of affliction, with the heat turned up to broil, I've learned that failure is the flour in humble pie, and it is way easier to deal with, and much more preferred than success. I know how to do failure very well, but I've never done success. Believe me when I say this, I'm scared to death of it! PUN intended. I'd almost rather fail my entire life, and let my work succeed after I am gone. That way GOD gets all the credit, all the glory and I'm just a stone in the ground. After all, Allen means stone!