Tag Archives: Bible

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Fears (Day 17)

Spiders, snakes, being old(er) and alone and living a life without purpose. Those are my top four fears. I have other things that make me fearful but I don’t want to go on and on about things like Stephen King’s books and movies. Have you ever read Tommy Knockers? Shudder, that was my last scary book. Then there is that red rum scene in the Shining that make me want to hide in my closet. 

Last year my ex took me back to court to change custody. Some days I was very afraid. The financial impact and the possibility of him winning the case caused me anxiety for many months. 

I refuse to live the rest of my life in fear. I had plenty of fears growing up. I feared too many things and people. I was concerned about what people would say to me, if the mean girls were going to threaten to beat me up, were they going to make fun of my clothes today? Those are big deals to middle school girls. 

When thoughts come to my mind or I’m having too many negative conversations with myself I repeat two of my favorite quotes. “Only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt and “God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7. 

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Unfailing Love

I walked back in time this week at work. I’m training for a new position and the person I’m replacing has worked there for 29 years. She’s as sweet as pie and has more knowledge about this job than she can pass on to me in two weeks. When I walked into her office, I had a quick trip down memory lane. She still has a word processor. For those of you who don’t remember, they replaced typewriters. If you don’t know what a typewriter is google it or better yet spend some time talking to your grandparents about life when they were kids. You might find the time before modern technology fascinating. Where was I? She has files that date back 30 years that are kept in big, blue, three ring binders. She copies certain documents and files them, numerically, in these binders and keeps a copy on her computer’s desktop. She keeps the copy in the binder because she doesn’t trust the computer. What if something happens to the computer system and all the data is lost? I smiled and nodded my head telling her I completely understand. It’s hard to trust computers. They lock up and shut down at the most inconvenient time. When you want answers they don’t always provide reliable information. They fail us. Over time, we’ve learned not to trust them which is why we backup information on a disc or in the cloud or print paper. We want security. We want to know that all of our hard work is there and easily accessible. We want something that will not fail us.

In a recent e-mail someone made a statement to me about God’s unfailing love. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the word unfailing. Unfailing…I know what it means  to me but I wanted to see what MERRIAM-WEBSTER thought of it and here are three words used to define unfailing-constant, everlasting and inexhaustible. WOW!

We know that computers are fallible, cars break down, houses become worn, people disappoint us but God and his love towards us is constant, everlasting and inexhaustible.

Unfailing love indeed.

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Why God Hates Divorce

I’ve been divorced for almost four years. This week, I finally understood some reasons why God hates divorce.

It’s the cries of the children that break his heart
It’s the responsibility they feel for the breakup
It’s the blame
It’s the shame
It’s why my family
It’s brokenness
Bitterness
It’s acting as a peacekeeper
Responsibility, more than they can bear
Allegiance
Alliance
Stuck in the middle
I miss my mom
I miss my dad
I want them back together
Holidays apart
A new family
A new start
It’s the sorrow of the children that hurt his heart
A life they didn’t plan
A step-mother or father
A step- brother or sister
New rules
New traditions
I miss my old life
Resentment
Disrespect
Which parent to protect?
Love is scary
Trust is gone
Relationships don’t work
Fear takes on a life of it’s own
Forgotten
Pushed aside
A brand new life
A new bed
A different room
Brand new house
A new school
No old friends
The Church is new too?
Nothing is familiar
Why just tell me why?
It’s the disappointment of the children that brings sadness to God
God hates divorce and I now understand why

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Taking My Thoughts Captive

2 Corinthians 10:5 “…and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”

I was thinking about his scripture a couple of weeks ago. I actually think about it often. Like my subtitle says, I am a thinker. Sometimes my thoughts become my reality or I project my thoughts on to others. If I think it, it must be true, right? Not so much. Then I ask myself, how do I take my thoughts captive? My thoughts are like leaves blowing in the wind. Can you visualize a beautiful fall day with huge trees lining a street? The orange, yellow, burgundy and brown leaves create a carpet of colorful patterns on the ground. As you walk through those leaves, a gust of wind blows through and the leaves do a dance in the air. They twirl around and around enjoying the opportunity to show off their dance moves. Now imaging trying to catch those leaves in the midst of the dance. It seems impossible to me. How to you capture every leaf?

I contemplated this on my drive to work. When I arrived to work, I stopped to talk to some coworkers and told them what I had been thinking that morning, taking thoughts captive. We looked outside of the window at the leaves covering the ground. Then it came to me. You capture the leaves and the thoughts one at a time.

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Can You Imagine This?

You are sitting in your living room or laying in your bed watching TV, reading or sleeping and all of a sudden there is pounding on your door. Then members of the military break down your front door, go into your bedrooms and pull your baby boys out of the bed and kill them right there in front of you. You are helpless and can’t do anything to stop them. Why are they doing this? What happened? Why me? You grab your baby into your arms and cry out to God. Why!?!?!?

You look at your husband and he looks at you. He tried to stop them but he was beat up and knocked out. You tried to protect them but you were slapped in the face, kicked and held back. Why!?!?!? If they didn’t come to your house, how many of your neighbors do you hear screaming and crying in the night and throughout the day. What do you do? What can you do?

Matthew 2:16
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

At the time that I originally wrote this, my two youngest would have been two and one. They would have been killed along with all of the other baby boys on that horrendous night. I have so many questions about that night. Did they take them away or did they kill them in front of their parents? Did the parents ever figure out what why it was done? Did they ever forgive… Would I have been able to forgive whoever was responsible for taking my baby boys from my life? Tough questions but questions I ask nonetheless. I would like to think Jesus paid a visit to those families when he was older and comforted them.