Here it is Christmas Eve already. I was excited to manage to get the tree up again. I missed it last year. Last year was sad. I remember this day last year, dragging myself out of the house in desperation to find a present for Mike. I took the dogs with me, thinking somehow they’d protect me if anything happened, like, if I passed out. {:o\ My logic was limping a bit. I remember how hard it was to keep my balance from the car to the doors of the store. Once inside, I held onto things here and there to stabilize myself. I knew I was real sick, but I think that, at that point, there was so much pressure on my brain that I couldn’t really think objectively enough anymore to realize that I was in real trouble. The Lord must have had angels watching over me to get my car to the mall and back safely. Wow
And here I am today. One year later. Feeling almost normal again. Like it was all a bad dream. It’s pretty special that I get to have another Christmas.
The year has been one challenge after another though. I feel a little like Job when the devil asked God if he could ’sift him like wheat’. (OK, perhaps a weee bit dramatic) But I guess I kind of thought that when you go through something big like that, that you get some kind of ‘exemption’ from other troubles… for, a bit… at least… a year or so… don’t you think? Doesn’t that sound fair? [:o\ Apparently that’s yet another idealistic notion. The enemy, has worked overtime on us this year, physically, financially, emotionally. I can’t recall the battle ever being quite so fierce or relentless.
Working with Petra had a sad ending. What started out as a group of people, seeing a common vision of calling God’s people back from complacency to remembering how much Jesus loved them, a year and a half ago, turned into something we could not have imagined. The details don’t matter, although for a while, very honestly, I thought that they did. What matters is simply this; We, as Christians combat our fleshly desires and temptations daily. Every day, we’re tugged by our emotions, our self-focus, the world, people’s influence in our lives, and so many other things, and we reach one crossroad after another, where we have to choose between the flesh and the spirit. We assume, I think, that because someone is a ‘well known Christian personality’, that we can look to them as spiritual leaders. But the reality is that God uses people to spread the gospel and cause genuine changes in other people’s lives for the good, but those He chooses are still on their own journey, battling with their flesh each day to varying degrees of success. Rare is the man who, like Paul, can say “follow me”. …I don’t know. It would be dishonest to say that it wasn’t a blow. But through the Holy Spirit were we able to see things in the true light, and we realized that the only response was to let it go, forgive, and pray for the Lord to bless them in the ways that only He knows are best. As a redeemed, fallen creature, I have to continually keep before me that when I was/am unlovely, He still loved/loves me. That is the immeasurable power of Jesus and His cross. Without Him there is nothing good in any of us.
He has been working this for good in us, all of it. Through His word, through His Spirit, through our amazing friends and loved ones (although they are all our ‘loved ones’), we walk through, day by day. And here we are, Christmas Eve 2011, thanking God for His great love, as He has walked with us through each and every day, and brought provision where there was none. We thank God for our friends, who have shown us that, through adversity, together, we are strong; as they have loved us, and been His hands ministering to us.
This summer I became very aware of some of the clear ’signs of the times’,and the evidences that there is a great power that is working diligently toward bringing in the prophesied one world government of the Bible. It isn’t happening like many have been predicting for the past decades though. It’s more sinister than anyone had imagined, and the methods are multi-faceted. From everything that I see, we are here, at the brink, of those terrible times that the Lord spoke about that would happen before He would reappear. Financially, the world is in a bigger mess that it has ever been. The United States is on thin ice, in debt, full of crooks in our positions of power. Taxes intended to protect the banks and our economy from collapse , were stolen by either greedy bankers, or some other unimaginably wealthy group of people who can get away with that kind of a heist without getting caught, while people by the thousands lost their homes. The people are crying out with the “Occupy” movement against that heinous evil. The skies are filled with geoengineering planes, doing, we aren’t fully sure, what. We only know that the sky looks different than it did 20 years ago, with much of what we believe to be clouds, not being natural clouds at all, but rather man made plumes created with aluminum aerosol, and other chemicals (known by what is found in the rain). Weather modification has been around for a long time, and most people know that much, but there are too many things that ‘weather modification’ doesn’t answer. Like the massive amounts of aluminum found in rain samples, and barium, and strontium. Massive levels of heavy metals in peoples blood (those who have the initiative to get it tested have found), sick plants, missing honeybees, more autism, alzheimers, and respiratory problems that ever seen before, just to name a few things. What are they doing? I don’t know. I can only speculate. I am convinced though, simply because of the secrecy of it, that it is something very bad. Who is doing it? I don’t know that either. I only know that it would take an unimaginable amount of money to set up a program that has dozens of planes flying over every city in the world criss crossing the sky and spraying things. The media doesn’t mention it – yet the skies are blatantly full of it. That tells me something is very wrong. The people like me who look up and wonder about it are dubbed “conspiracy theorists”. Children’s cartoons, now, are even created with our new ’striped’ skies in the background. I am asking why. It is not a popular question. But deep inside, I know.
Well… I could go on for a long time about all of that. But what I see, and what I sense in my heart, is that the end of days are upon us. While it is upsetting, the Word of God does not tell us to be afraid when these days come. Instead, it tells us to REJOICE! Because He is coming soon! I sometimes daydream when I’m walking my dogs, about what the earth will look like when the Lord comes back and cleans it all up to live here with us for those thousand years. Won’t that be glorious?!! To be ruled by the only fair ruler. The One who rules with Love, mercy and compassion. Those are the days I dream of!
Anyway, to those who might be wondering how my health is coming along – I am doing great. I still get tired easily, but that will improve in time I’m sure. It’s hard for me to imagine how sick I was only last Christmas Eve.
This year my friend Gayle is in the hospital. She had open heart surgery the day before yesterday. It was greatly successful. My heart is with her. Please keep her in your prayers for a fast recovery!
I just got my grandmothers’ cinnamon roll recipe from my “aunt” Debbie, (who is younger than me) <:o) So, I’m going to try that out this afternoon and celebrate another Christmas! 