Peace Of Mind

A number of years ago I sat a while and tried to define peace for myself.  What did peace of mind mean for me. I knew immediately that it was connected to security.  Feeling safe in Jesus. And I thought of how as a child, for years after my salvation, no matter the turmoil in life, I felt so safe with Jesus. I also felt cared for. Like he was providing my every need. I fully expected it. I was content with what I had.  But I often was delighted to have the most secret desires of my heart fulfilled, knowing only God knew what they were, and he provided them too. I knew that inner peace wasn't dependant upon outer peace. Oh my, no! I could have peace in spite of the the outer tumoil. And there was a lot of it, frankly. My childhood was rocky. But blessed.  I certainly didn't have the same faddish clothing as the wealthier students at my school. But I sincerely didn't even notice much. Somethimes, they were all wearing the same thing, and I was different. I rather liked not getting on that wagon.
Once I had that mental image of child-like dependance upon God and being happy where I was, 'cause back then I smiled a lot, I remembered that, even then, I knew it was God's peace. I felt as if I were feeling the oneness with God's Spirit.  It only took a few minutes to realize that it wasn't a list of things that gave me peace, but that connection with the Holy Spirit within me that gave me peace. It was more than that though. It is a spirit of submission to his working through me that gives me peace. Not a mindless submission to an overpowering controling manipulating dominance. It is easy to recognize now that I am older and have a few years of doing battle with that spirit to recognize ole Satan's kind of control. Instead, just the opposite happens if I relinquish to the Spirit of God.  He opens my mind to think freely. He opens the doors, pulls down the walls, restores my joy, heals my brokenness, restores my energy, clears my head...and just plain gives me peace. Life expands, I can see the impossible as possible.
So once I had thought about it, I prayed that I could have that peace once more, as from a child-like point of view.  No worries about this world and all the emotional turbulance that often comes with focusing there. I wanted the peace where you were not worrying over the what to's, what if's, whys, and how do I's of this world. The result is that God has renewed a sweet spirit within me.  I have more tolerance, more sense of justice, and recognition of blessings.  I find my joy in the laughter of my grandchild instead of attaining the next thing.  It's funny how once we have jobs, we get stuck in finding joy in what to buy next. Not that we shouldn't buy things, or find joy there...it's just that I had lost that peace that frees me for the driven to achieve, aquire, and become kind of seeking that always put peace at arms length.  Rather than my peace being out there somewhere, it is here within me.
Peace of mind, is not just a quietness in my mind, but a quietness in my soul.  Not a quietness like silence, just a calmness that drinks in sustenance from the daily provision of an almighty, all knowing, all encompassing God. It allows me to let him deal with the tough stuff. 
This week we have seen God do his mighty work on someone we love. His healing hand has made a miracle...hurray! And all we had to do was let him walk before us, and see what his grace would provide. 
I have praise for him today... because I have recognized that once again he has given me the desire of my heart. Only he knew that I was asking for peace like when I was first saved...and only he could provide it.  So I know the source of my peace, and I know the process he used to give it.  Recognizing the presence of God and seeing that peace manifested in my life once more grieves me that I have not asked for it before now.  I just allowed the heaviness of life draw my attention away from watching God live in my life as Jesus lived when he walked the earth in flesh.
Even Christ, when he prayed that agonizing prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane where his anxiety seemed to overwhelm him...was taking upon himself the anxiety of the world so that it might be dealt with.  Even then he was doing battle with Satan and experiencing what we deal with when we go there. Jesus knew the outcome, and that he would win the battle. Even he stood firmly on the promises of his Father, and allowed the Father to go before him to prepare the way.
Even the cross was what Satan presumed he would use to persuade men, that he has power in this world. That is why I really love the ressurection cross, because I don't look just to the cross for my peace, but I look to the ressurection to where Satan was defeated, for my peace. I am empowered by knowing Jesus gave to us the power of the Spirit that carried him through those dark hours in his life. When all the people around Christ thought that their savoir was lost to the power of an evil world, the ressurection was proof that nothing stands in the way of God's ability to provided life and that more abundantly.. It renewed their hope immediately.
Praising the God of my peace! Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world! AMEN

Peace Like A River

Now that I can't upload photos from my computer to my blog, it is disheartening to blog.  The pictures I take are often my inspiration, and are always a part of what is going on for me. I think you can tell I like bold colors or contrasts from the back ground on this blog.  But I also like soft colors, but am not liking the trend toward bland.  Everything on a white background with an occasional picture here and there, sends me into a child-like mode of looking only for the pictures and skipping the text.  I usually read a few words and click away from the site. I also don't like being sent to a bunch of places that I can't get back from.  So, I just text here, from my heart.  It is my journal...of how I grow in the Lord's timing.. That's all.
Lately, I have been in a come what may mode.  It is better than stressing on what I often cannot change.  I resist change anyway, but change is happening faster than I can comprehend sometimes, so I am resigned to allow God to be the manipulator of my circumstances.  I am selecting my choices, and my battles very carefully.  Not all is well, but is it ever?  I just have peace, and am glad to be in a place of peace. 
I used to sing one of my favorite songs, at home alone and sometimes when called to the front of church. 
The words go something like this:

"I  have peace like a river, I have peace like a river, I have peace like a river in my soul."
Repeat.
Second verse:
"I have love like a river... etc.
and the third:
I have joy like a river...etc.
With children we would sing it one more time saying Peace, Joy, Love like a river, very quickly.

The Lord knows my needs and I have a few.  So I pray that I can rejoice soon at his provision for my needs. And in the mean time, I just stay parked in Peace.

Lord bless me in this place of peace.  I ask you to fill my needs, and I reserve the desires of my heart til the day that they will not infringe upon someone I love having peace as well. AMEN

Forgiven of Much?

One of the great opposites of scriptural premise is the law of recipricals. 

Here’s an example of one.

Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. Luke 7:47KJV

[L Therefore] I tell you that her many sins are forgiven, ·so [that is why] she showed great love. But the person who is forgiven only a little will love only a little.” Expanded Bible (EXB) Luke 7:47

Jesus explains that a person who feels the most unworthy of God’s grace because of how far from God’s “laws” they have lived, is likely to love him the most when they really get a grip on the totality of their forgivenss.  But the one who has lived a life before God, may believe he or she has less need to be forgiven. The result is likely to be, they have no reason to know the depths of God’s love, and never really stand in awe of God’s goodness. 

Another example of this is when, in the parable of the wayward son, (“The Prodigal Son” Luke15: 11-32), the older brother was actually angry when his younger brother arrived home to forgiveness and a grand party.  In a discussion with his father, he explained his hurt from following his father’s every lead, but never having been offered the fatted calf for a celebration with his friends.  In that moment, the younger son had so much more love for his father, not because of the fatted calf, or the celebration…but because of his father’s forgiveness and acceptance of him, that enabled him to return to the status his older brother already had.  The father explained to the older son, that love wasn’t based on something so trivial as the fatted calf, or parties. The older son already possessed everything the father had to give, and he wasn’t even aware. He could probably have had a celebration with friends and the fatted calf any time, just by asking his father.  But he didn’t understand how much joy he should have. He had little need, so he developed little love for the giver.  Although his father gave him all, he never saw the joy in having so great love from his father.

I was the older son…sort of.  I lived from my earliest childhood in a relationship with God that I thought was as special and close as it could possibly be.  Then when I began to know that without Jesus I was no better than the most lost of the lost, I was angry with God.  Until I understood the depth of sin, and the wholeness of the remedy, I lost the sweetness of my love of God.  I sort of expected the celebration for being a good child, rather than knowing that- God wanted to give me a way to cease from always trying to be a good child. The celebration would occur when I could no longer rely on my own goodness, but on being saved from the struggle.

 Throughout the years of counseling people, children and adults, there have been so many times someone delayed seeking God because of their failures to be “good.”  I found myself becoming more and more certain that it wasn’t goodness that God was seeking.  It was our hearts.  God seeks our love.  As he gives it, he would like to get it. 

One of the morals of Christ’s story is that if we are holding up something to God and saying, I am not worthy, he is busy preparing a celebration just because we came to him to share our deepest needs.  We shouldn’t have to be in the swells of our deepest storms and shortcomings to know the love of God and find inner freedom, but it often is the sequence in the path we take.  The oddest opposite is that when we become aware of our shortcomings, and sins, and shy away from God’s best…we have the most joy and discover the deepest love when we finally realize that it was the lost he came searching for.  Each one who has been deepest in sin is the one he seemingly loves the most. Why does it seem that way? Because he leaves the 99 sheep to go looking for the lost one.  Many of Christ’s parables are to give us reason to understand that even the farthest from his boundaries, are the ones he longs for, seeks, loves  beyond belief, and wants to see safely home in joy.

Jimmy and I are getting underway finding our places in our future of retirement.  We are on limited income, and my retirement income is over a half a year away.  His disability income is constantly in flux, appearantly dependent upon whether he gets "better" or not.  We want him to get better, but haven't figured out exactly how to live without the income.  We are going back to our youth of doing without anything that isn't food or a place to live.  We were spending amazing amounts on medications, but thankfully is able to take advantage of his VA benefits. To that we add a little gas money to spend time birding, which is a basically free hobby except for the gas to travel around. Jimmy has an agenda that he pursues that is so different than mine but I am just letting him pursue it, as much as I can without being shut out from a few things that I love to do as well.  We are still struggling with making our diets mesh, and getting our sleeping patterns in line.  He is doing all he can to go to bed at a certain time, but he often tosses and turns after years of working nights.  I am off my sleeping schedule because my interrupted sleep has sort of drawn me into his old pattern and I fall asleep in the middle of the day.  If I fight it through, I tend to fall asleep late, and like a baby who has a nap too late in the day...I am up till all hours. 
We each have things we like to pursue, so while I blog and draw, or mess with pictures and graphics, he researches his ancestry and everything to do with coins.  He's very knowlegable about both. He likes e-mail, I like messaging on facebook. He loves talking on the phone, I like texting. In a lot of ways we complement one another because we are opposites.  It helps with the phone bill that he uses the minutes and I use the texts and pics.  But when it comes to food...not so good.  We eat the opposite foods too.  In order to stay healthy I need a severely reduced carb count, and he is a white carb-aholic and it never seems to affect his A-1c tests.  Well to a point. His was up since he retired, and it is because he is home cooking more rice and biscuits, his favorites.  But so is mine..up.  And I would prefer not to eat the rice and biscuits.. I could do without them both completely.  I occasionally would allow myself some pizza, now we are eating carbs at about 4 times the rate I can tolerate them. Why? you say.  Because there is only enough money to buy one of our diets and his is cheaper.  WE can't afford mine.  I used to work, almost entirely to be able to buy my food, in order to keep from becoming a diebetic. Upon loosing my last job, I had lost the battle to fend off the diabetic lean my body was taking.  Now I am diabetic..and there's no going back.
But all things considered, I am so happy that he and I are arguing so much less than we used to. We are helping each other with the daily jobs. For the first time in our marriage we have found the niches of where we fit in our own home.  Or at least I think we have.  We each still have to do our own laundry.  He has to help me with the vacuuming, because that seems to mess with my back more than any other housecleaning chore. And he has decided he likes cleaning the kitchen.  Not so different from before except, he would come home from work in the night  cook him something to eat while I slept, and in order not to wake me, would leave the dishes.  So I would go to sleep with a clean kitchen and wake to a messy one.  It wasn't a source of contention, just difficult to resolve, because if I got up and tried to clean the kitchen, I woke him. 
I look forward to getting even better at being a retired couple, but one thing I am finding.  We seem more like the couple I knew we were before he went to Vietnam 40+ years ago.  We talk more, like friends, and like a couple about intimate subjects that we have avoided for years because we always fought.  We seem to be open to one another's points of view.  I find I want to please him more, and he seems to want to please me more.  Our conversation is developing to a point of listening as much as talking.  I am learning how much his hearing loss is affecting his attitude about being confused. And I am seeing how much my tendency to pass out after eating carbs is making a routine dificult to establish.
In the future we need to be hungry at the same time, sleep at the same time, and continue to be opposites in just about everything else. LOL
I am looking to Jesus for everything we need.  I praise him for his generous supply so far.  Not enough to do what we want maybe, but enough to be warm and happy.  That will do.

Continue Lord to bless my husband, and help me to grow in areas where our relationship needs change.  In Jesus Name, AMEN

A Happy New Year

I had a wonderful day this first day of the year 2013.  My husband and I love to "bird." That means we like going out on some days to see what birds we can find.  Being a member of our local Ornithological Society means we can participate in the national "bird count" days.  Our group is assigned a segment on the map that is within a circle to limit the results to same or similar areas from year to year.  The results of doing the counts on or near the same day, gives a big picture of what birds tend to be in the area this time of year, if their numbers are increasing or decreasing, and a clue how the weather might affect our ability to see these birds. We get  a sense of their migration patterns, their habitat and how changing it changes the migration patterns and other things.  Sometimes we actually end up with more questions than answers, but we enjoy the comradery developed over the years of being a team member.
Life lately has made it difficult for all the ususal members of our team to come together at one time every time. Today 4 of us joined forces to face a soaker of a rainy day, and started the day with few expectations because of the rain.  We began our day a little later than ususal, around 6:00am, and were worn completely out by early afternoon. With 9 hours of nonstop birding behind us we had a right to be exhausted, but it is showing that we are all getting older. 12 or 13 hours used to be nothing to us, if we could just find one more bird species. With age realism has set in, and we have a knowlege of our area its habitat where to look for certain species that we didn't have in years gone by.  We found 64 Species of birds today in spite of the rain. That is acutallly a very good number for as hard as it rained, because birds often take cover and hunker down in these circumstances. But today they were very active and came whether we were just pishing or running the owl tape. Curious birds respond to the alarm calls of other birds (pishing) or to the call of an owl much like birds attacking a thieving crow or blue jays fussing at a hawk in a tree.  If they think an owl is near, they will show up in droves to torment it out of their territory, or will at least alarm the remainder of the bird world.
So time and again at each location we called off the species we were seeing through our binoculars, and gather to record how many we collectively saw.  As a team we have learned to face different directions sometimes, and to diversify where each of us is looking.  However, if someone is seeing a new species for the day, they will call it out carefully, to give others an opportunity to see it.  Today was one of those good days. We functioned well, and put trust in one another, as a good team should.
I never tire of seeing the many birds there are to see. Being in the natural world blesses me.  The people we are with are Godly people, and we all have a sense of God's presense as we do our part to take care of the natural world He created for us to live in. It is one of the best ways I know to start a new year.  I was blessed to be with friends, to know I am part of team, to have a purpose for the day, to be healthy enough to withstand the arduousness of it, and to be like minded with a group of individuals who care about something.
The one other thing that makes this special to me, is that this is me being the person God made me. I am in my comfort zone you might say. Since childhood I have loved flowers and birds and wild things. When I am there among them, my sense of God is powerful. My confidence that He has always been in control is renewed. My amazement of his grandness is expanded.  I find I fall in Love with God all over again.
I sincerely hope someone else had a day as great as that on this first day of the year. May there be blessings beyond your understanding in store for everyone this year.  I pray that a revival, a renewal, a return to strength for the weary, will begin in the hearts of every one on earth who knows and loves God, in the name of Jesus AMEN.