a wierd analogy....

Why is the neighbors lawn so much greener than ours???
It's only March.
Our irrigation hasn't even been turned on, yet, the next door neighbors lawn is deep green, ours is brown with patches of light green.
What's up with that?
Did they use a better, hybrid grass seed that is more suitable for our arid climate????
Or, are they watering from their well?????
I've not seen any water going on the lawn.....
Hmmmm........
Maybe it started off in better condition last fall than ours did, afterall, I'm not sure we laid a late fertilizer, that's gotta be it.
Their grass had more nutrients on it to last the long winter cold and drought.
Makes sense in life, too, doesn't it????
If you know that you will experience a season of drought, pain, loss, wandering....then it just makes sense to "ammend the soil," to store up, to be prayed up, to gather strength, right???
I wonder if that is what is happening to Terri Shaivo and her family......
Afterall, Terri seems "greener" than she should be.
She has a strength of will which has defied logic and, I think that should be looked at as her testimony.
She's not brown with patches of green, like my lawn, she is perfectly green.
She is living.....even without water and food.
I wish that Terri could see the Spring and experience it's time of renewal, it's beauty, but I believe it's unlikely.
Too bad....I think she had gathered her strength for one last stand....
To live.

I really didn't need to know this....

but, now Baskin & Robbins has Tiramasu ice-cream!
I had some today.....it was, how-you-say.....fantastic!
.....really didn't need to know that.....
.....................dang............

"Flowers for Algernon"

Does anybody remember this book/movie from the mid 70's?????
It starred Matthew Modine as a retarded adult who underwent an experimental surgery to give him higher brain function.
Algernon was the mouse that also had the surgery and became his best friend. Anyway, I remember it as a great book and movie. I found it in the library and I'm reading it with Nevada.
I love sharing things with my girls that I loved when I was their age...keeps me young.(fat chance)
Does anyone remember it????

my deep, dark secret

The other day, my daughter, Lacey, asked me to tell her about "speaking in tongues", apparently, her class at church had discussed it.
"What a good question!" I told her.
I went on to explain exactly how it is used, then and now, and that sometimes people call it their "prayer language" and I told her that her dad and I have been involved with worship times when it was done and it was beautiful.
The first church that we attended together after getting married was a Calvary Chapel, which is a very charismatic church.
We loved it!
We grew spiritually and grew in bonds of fellowship.
I told Lacey that the reason we left was because we wanted to have a great childen's program for our kids and that was not a big priority at this particular church, so we left and went to RBC, which is my home church, a very conservative Southern Baptist church.
What a change indeed, but, one I don't regret, however, there are times when I miss a lively worship experience and we have, at times, gone back to get a taste, but, for the most part, we love where we are at.
We were led here for a reason.....
I do have a deep, dark secret, I told Lacey, no one knows this about me:
God gave me a prayer language!
I was driving home from an "Afterglow" ( not what you think...), which was a special worship time after evening worship for the use of the gifts of the Spirit, anyway, it was awesome......
On the way home, I asked God to tell me if I had the gift of tongues........(I knew I did, it just freaked me...) and He gave it and I started praising Him and it was very cool......but, like I said, it freaked me and so I hid it under a bushel, where it's been for 10 years!!!
I told my secret......now tell me yours.....

The missing day.

Recently, space scientists in Maryland were checking out where the positions of the sun, moon, and planets would be in 100 or 1000 years from now.
They have to know the precise placement of them so that the satellites that are launched will not "bump" into them later on it orbits. They have to lay out the orbits based on the life of the satellite and where the planets will be in 100 or 1000 years.
They ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries and it came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal, which meant that there was either something wrong with the information fed into it, or with the results as compared to the standards.
They called in the service dept. to check it out, and they asked, "What's wrong?"
Well, they found there was a day missing in space in lapsed time.
"That's impossible!" the scientists said.

Finally, a Christian man on the team said,"One time when I was in Sunday School, we talked about the sun standing still."
He showed them in Joshua 10:12-13 these words:

"There they found the Lord saying to Joshua, Fear them not, I have delivered them into thy hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee. Joshua was concerned because he was surrounded by the enemy, and if darkness fell, they would overpower them, so Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still. The sun stood still and the moon stayed and lasted not to go down about a whole day."

The scientists were sceptical, but intrigued. They checked the computers going into the time it was written and found it was close, but not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hrs. and 20 min. Not a whole day.
They read the Bible, and there it was; "about a day",but, the 40 minutes would have to be found.
The christian also remembered a story in the Bible in 2 Kings:

"Hezekiah, on his death bed, was visited by the prophet, Isaiah who told him that he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for proof. Isaiah said,'Do you want the sun to go ahead 10 degress?' Hezekiah said, 'It is nothing for the sun to go ahead 10 degress, but let the shadow return backwards.' Isaiah spoke to the Lord, and the Lord brought the shadow 10 degrees BACKWARD!"

Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes!
23 hrs. and 20 minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in 2nd Kings make the missing day in the universe!!

Isn't that amazing how science has proved that God and His word are, in fact, accurate and true?

"There will come a day when every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord and every knee shall bow......"

my weekend...

I love the Seattle area...
I love the old parts of town, especially if they are being renovated.
Downtown Tacoma has had just that and it is adorable.
After the museum we walked around and looked at the store fronts for treasures to behold. We went into a great candy store and talked with the ladies who owned it, they gave us warm smiles and warm chocolates. They welcomed us to come back when we could...it was great!
I just love Union Station with Dale Chihuly's amazing glass sculptures.....his art museum is there, as well, and over the highway are 2 of his huge glass scluptures that are a gorgeous teal blue towers of glass bubbles!!!!
My girlfriend thinks they look like the blue Walmart bags tied to a pole....haha(she's right, actually!)
Anyway, I do so wish we lived there...one day.....
Also, the end of a 2-decade mystery came to an end this weekend.
A favorite song of mine and Kimberly's is: "She's gone" by Chilliwack.
Kim and I have tried for almost 20 years to remember the words to this song, but, to no avail. Until now..... my hero, Kimberly, downloaded the music and put it on CD for me to enjoy at my leisure.
Thank you, my friend, you are my favorite!!!!!!!
" gone, gone, gone, she's been gone so long, she's been gone, gone, gone so long......
I love it!!!!!

we will never forget...

My girls and I are in Puyallup this weekend to visit good friends and to see the 9/11 exhibit at the Tacoma Museum that is being sponsored by the Smithsonian.
It was a great experience to see and remember all that happened to the victims and to remember how different the world seemed then, compared to now.
Prior to 9/11, life seemed simpler, more innocent....now we live with many more uncertainties....or do we?
I don't believe so.
There have always been radical factions stirring up trouble throughout history, this is nothing new to history, just to the USA.
Really???
"Radical " Christians came to this country in search of the freedom to worship God as they pleased. They sought freedom from oppression and I am grateful for that legacy.
What can we learn of the "radicals" of that horrible day who chose to give up their lives in the name of a religion??
They DON"T represent the whole.......
Don't be hatin' just cuz I say I'm a Christian and don't be hatin' just cuz someone is a Muslim.
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another...for they will know you are my disciples."
Jesus spoke this to his disciples not too long before He left this world....
We must NEVER forget......

writing.....

You know what is so cool to me right now????
It is writing.....
Writing has always been easy for me, but now that I have this group of other writers to be accountable to, who encourage me and call me to ask if it's done so that they can read it to their kids cause they love it!!!!!
It's like, BIG.
Thank you, Pen Pals, for that.
I have been feeling uninspired to post anything inspiring cuz I'm tapped out.
Which reminds me, I have a climax to write, so....bah bye.

my Friday stuff......

I had my friend, Trisha, over for lunch yesterday.
We talked about ministry....
We agreed, as mothers, that teaching our children about God's love and salvation is a priority ministry.
At church, each of us have a role in ministry. She is Lacey's Sunday School teacher and I have various activities that I lead out in that would be considered ministry.
We, I, talked about the whole concept of "preaching to the choir" thing and how I feel that I need to do more.....
We talked about "lifestyle witnessing" for those whose gifts and talents do not include being a bold, evangelical christian.
I left the conversation feeling like I hadn't accomplished anything, but I thought it about all day.
I was thinking...all of the people that I hang out with are Christ-followers, which is good, but, what am I doing , myself, to bring the good news to the lost??
So, last night, at dinner with my husband, we talked to our waitress about some end-times prophecy stuff BECAUSE she made a comment about how it seemed the world was winding down, that something was going to happen......
We could have just let that go and finished our dinner, but I thought, NO, this is about being SALT and LIGHT to a lost and dying world. I didn't want to pass up and opportunity to share what we know to be TRUTH.
We went to Barnes & Noble and in the Religious section of the store, I turned all the books around that are blatant lies about God, that felt great.....and then I just listened......and thought to myself, now this is ripe territory.
There were groups there that had different things going on; a women's craft group, some young people doing a project together, a Christian singles group was there talking about Jesus.
My point is: you don't have to go far to have opportunites to share about your faith, they' re all around you if you will just stop long enough to listen...or share a cup of cool water....pray that God will give you those divine appointments.
Just do it...doo eet.

pressing on.....

A question?

If there is nothing that we can do the hasten the return of Christ, that He has a divine time to return, then what are we here for?????
Chuck Mitsler suggests that maybe God has a divine NUMBER of saints to return for and That is why we are here: to bring in the Harvest.
Maybe, this SBC group back in the 70's weren't so far off base to think that if we could reach more people for Christ, then we could hasten God's return for His Church??
I don't know the answer.....
but, I DO know that the study of Eschatology, which is the study of "last things", is something that has fascinated me in the last few years, and I find that it is popular thought to think that Christ's return is imminent, based on prophecy, not anyone's opinion.

One night, about a year ago, I was driving home with my girls and, suddenly, the hillside to the right of the highway lit up and there was a shadow of a door at the bottom of the light.
The light mesmorized me.... I looked back in the rear-view morror to see it was gone!
I asked the girls if they had seen the light on the hill?
"What light?" was their answer.
I knew that God had given ME a vision....of heaven?
When we got home, I immediately went to my bedroom and prayed for an answer.
God told me that He was preparing a wonderful place for me, but it was not time to be there, yet, because there was more work to be done....
It WAS a vision of heaven...He cracked the door just a little, to show me His wonderous light, and that it wasn't going anywhere.
WOW!!!!!
My friend, Teresa, talked to me the next day and told me that God had given her a verse for me:
Job 19:25-27,
"And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.
Even after my skin is destroyed,
yet from my flesh I shall see God:
Whom I myself shall behold,
and whom my eyes shall see and not another,
My heart faints within me."

There is work to be done.
I will press on.....until the day of the Lord.