Oh, did we ever have the storms, yesterday! I JUST NOW am able to get on the Internet and it is intermittent, so will keep this short.
Nothing to say except that is why I am gone and I will do better soon.
Our own property is fine and we are fine, but the whole state has been renamed “State of Emergency”, for a while.
Hope the powers that be will excuse if I do not post-a-day every day.
Pray for us. Supposed to get more tonight. 🙂
The powers-that-be have just dragged her from the bed of a man to whom she is not married.
Perhaps all she is wearing is a bedsheet.
Perhaps he is one of the powers-that-be.
Nevertheless, there she stands, exposed, before her authorities. They do not care about her. They do not care about right or wrong. The have stalked her, captured her, and reduced her to the status of rubbish for one purpose: to trick a popular counselor of that day.
“The law demands this woman be stoned to death,” they announce. Then they wait. They are so sure. They have Him this time. The Man of Mercies will have to admit that mercy does not always win. They think.
He is unperturbed. He stoops and writes in the dust. A list of their sins? Perhaps. Do they look around themselves, worriedly, confused? Perhaps.
Meanwhile, the life of a woman hangs over eternity. Perhaps, thrown down to the ground, does she cower? Perhaps. In a culture that forbids her uncovered state, in a land filled with huge stones, she waits, uncovered, for her stoning.
Finally the Man stands to speak. “And whoever is without sin should throw the first stone.” Then he resumes writing.
Beginning with the eldest–perhaps wisest–each man drops his gleeful attitude, drops his stone, drops his case. Point taken.
The kind Counselor turns to ask the woman, “Where are they? Who is accusing you?”
The answer, from inside a bedsheet: “No one.”
“Neither do I condemn you.”
Notice He does not say she did not sin, but only that He does not condemn her. She stands obviously guilty and shamed, but for her, there is now no condemnation.
Stoning is not prevalent in our society, but prostitution is. I want to ask you: How many of us have been there–a blackened past forgiven by the mercies of God?
How many of us throw away that forgiveness? How many of us hug our sad past close and get it out to look at it and mourn over it, to relive it to its fullest? How many of us labor with all our might to get out from under sin that no longer is over us? How many of us on, stormy days, add to the bad past by letting it create for us bad choices, bad attitutdes, bad excuses?
A bad present?
Jesus asked only one thing from that woman, that day, and asks it of us, too: “Go, and sin no more.”
What if I do not forgive? What happens then?
Several things:
Here is what I used to teach my children when they were young and beginning to discover that friendship is not always all fun. Sometimes they would get into little tussles and strike back or hold anger against others. So I said:
“If someone does something bad to you, it hurts. I know.
“But if you just do something back to them, it does not help you. You still hurt, and now they hurt, too. What good does that do?
“If you stay angry and then someone innocent comes along and you strike out at that person, you STILL hurt, and that new person hurts, too.
“You are trying to get rid of your hurt by giving hurt to someone else. But when you give it to someone else, it does not mean they can take it AWAY from you. They may take it, but they cannot take it AWAY. You leave them hurting, too, and they may try to get rid of their hurt by giving hurt to someone else, who also cannot take it away.
“It’s a little like the flu. I can give it to you, but then we both will have it. It just spreads.
“Only One person can take hurt AWAY, and that is God. If you give all your hurt to Him, He can take it away from you and make you feel much better.”
Now, maybe that was too simple for an adult, but it is true. It’s what He died for. Why not try Him out?
There sure are a lot of wrong theories and sayings about forgiveness out there, these days! Most people have heard them all, too many times. And although logic tells us something is wrong, we strain to forgive according to all we’ve heard, and cannot figure it out. Nothing seems to happen and several of our victimizers do not stay forgiven very long at all.
What!
To get a grasp on exactly what we are supposed to do, let’s first eliminate all wrong thinking upon which some people may be trying to convince us to act. For instance:
Denial
Forgiveness is NOT saying, “Oh, it’s okay.” When someone has done hurtful wrong against you, IT IS NOT OKAY! It should make us feel all rotten inside to say it is. Why? Because spreading wrongful hurt is not okay; it is sin. Sin is not okay with God; how could it be okay with us? Saying it is, is denial. It’s just plain ol’ living a lie.
Only say, “It’s okay,” when it was not sin, was not intended as sin, and was not received as sin. Only say, “It’s okay,” if you would be okay with it happening again.
Excuses
Forgiveness is NOT forgetting. How can anyone forget something on purpose! We have miraculous brains that function largely by memory. We do not have back-space keys for our brains. God can decide to forget something, if He wants, or cause us to forget something, but we do not have that kind of power.
Thinking we must forget, in order to prove we have forgiven, sets us up for making excuses. We say, “I’ll never be able to forgive that, because I could never forget such-and-such.” Or we think we have not forgiven because memories keep resurfacing, so it must be hopeless to try. What a wide-open door for excuses!
Folly
It is neither safe nor wise to trust someone who has proven himself to be untrustworthy. To send a youngster back to a bullying classroom or molesting teacher, to lend more money to someone who has not repaid, to tell a secret to a gossip, is just plain folly.
We must forgive those who sin against us, but we do NOT have to trust them again, in order to prove we have done so. We certainly do not have to feel guilty for helping put such a one in jail, if his sin was illegal.
Besides, trust, by its nature, must be earned, cannot be demanded.
So What IS Forgiveness?!
If we look up the word, “forgive,” we can find the original meanings of its ancient parts: to give far away.
Think: Where would you put all that pain, if you could download it? How far away would be far enough? The farthest possible distance from this existence is: in God’s hands. When He takes it, it’s gone.
Giving it to Him can feel like work, but it is forgiveness and is far less work than dealing with the current agony.
Now we have dealt with the why’s of suffering and forgiveness, and we have defined terms. Come on by tomorrow and get the HOW-TO and some FAQ’s.
See ya’.
Are you ever too rushed or too un-awake to cook a breakfast? Sometimes I am and that’s when I turn to my secret stash of gold: a small bowl of hard-boiled eggs stored in the fridge.
Hard-boiled eggs are nearly too easy. You just open and eat. If you want, you can really exert yourself and sprinkle on some salt and pepper. Or go all the way and slice them, too.
If I find that slick, greenish coating on the yolk, though, I feel less hungry, fast.
Avoiding the green yolk is easy if you know how to boil an egg. Because breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I love sharing these instructions with anyone who will listen.
To Boil an Egg Hard:
That’s all there is to it. If you have followed these instructions exactly, you will have instant wonder-food for your breakfasts, any time you want.
And a couple of eggs plus a cup of coffee will cost you about 25 cents.
Question: When is a person not a person?
Answer: When he is a child.
Ladies, just think: You are one day post-partum and your doctor tells you that you may take your baby home if you want. But the nurse doesn’t want you to, so she calls the police. In an unheard-of tug of war, Dear Mommy, weary from labor and drained from lack of sleep, this nightmare unfolds before your eyes, in the land of the free.
And as sorry as you may feel for yourself, you cannot escape the fact that your precious new daughter is a mere pawn in a manipulator’s reach.
Read about it here.
And as sad as that may make us feel, should your child ever feel sadness, herself, better be prepared for another attack.
But don’t you DARE die!
If your precious daugher ever loses her parents and must be placed in foster or adoptive care, the State could place her in a home with two mommies or even with two daddies because it might hurt their feelings if the State did otherwise.
And this is no matter what the voters think.
Read about it here.
Oh, protect the children!
And pray…
They hoped he wouldn’t love me, but he did. They predicted we wouldn’t last, but we did. Vietnam tried to separate us, but it didn’t. They said we’d never get anywhere, but we did.
And at least half of it was due to the only man who would give up his seat to me, forty-something years ago.
We were hardly more than children, but love and stubbornness led the way. Milestone after milestone whizzed by until it seemed there was no stopping us.
Bumps in the road gave us strength, new direction, and adaptability, a great combination.
Now, six children homeschooled and raised up and out of the home, mostly it’s just us. And that was really all I needed in the first place—all the rest was frosting.
Buying and selling houses and cars, fixing broken things, building what we lacked, sweating at laboring, always taking the frugal route, he provided, always provided, so I would not have to leave our nest, was free to tend our babes in peace, not harried. I love the life I acquired with this man who spent himself so willingly for my freedom.
Then there is the wisdom. They say still waters run deep, and for him, it is true. When he spoke, the words were worth listening. When he spoke, other women feared.
And patience. Married to a woman who “needs a mute button”, he always listened, always listens. Always knows the answers to my confusions,
Let the world belittle marriage and commitment! Let them rant against fidelity and sanctity! Let them screw their brows into frowns and suspicions! Let them pretend they are happy without loyalty and truthfulness! Let them blow!
I cannot hear it.
I have spent my whole life with my best friend and would that I had another life to do it all again.
Home's Cool! 