Do I have a weasel stuck in my teeth?

I love Charlie.  There, I said it. I admit to it.  I love him and I don't even care if J knows it.  In fact, J is the one who introduced us this past fall.  I took one look at that curly dark hair around big brown eyes and I was hooked!  The deal was completely sealed when he looked right up and licked me on the nose!  Yes, in case you haven't figured it out, Charlie is my little shiz-tzu. I know I am not spelling that right so don't bother to send me notes about how it's wrong and what the correct way to spell it is.  You are dealing with a woman who occasionally has to check her drivers license to make sure she is spelling her name correctly.  After all, I've only had this last name for 20 years.  You can't expect perfection over night.  Aaaanyway, back to Charlie.  He was a birthday present from J last year.  He's a sweet little dog who is a lot of company here when I'm alone in the house, which seems to be more and more as the kids grow up.  Charlie doesn't do any tricks, he doesn't sit when you tell him to, he won't shake your hand, he won't go to bed when told, he won't roll over, sit up, or play dead.  The one thing Charlie will do is play fetch, over and over and over and over and..... you get the picture.  He has gone through countless stuffed toys, bones, balls, socks and numerous other items that have been fetched into ruin.  Right now we're working on a stuffed weasel, or ferret, the jury is still out on which one it actually is.
The thing is, Charlie will chase that toy for as long as you will throw it.  Sometimes I sit on the couch watching tv or reading and just throw it over and over again hoping he will tire of it but he never does.  Then one day I realized I am basically his home gym!  Who needs a doggy treadmill when you have someone who will give you something to chase for the equivalent of 12 miles?  I do, however, get some entertainment out of it.  You see, our downstairs are all hardwood floors and when you're a small furry dog they don't offer a whole lot of traction.  So, if you're not careful and you run pell mell after a small, stuffed weasel you can slide right into the wall. Every. Single. Time.  I find this hilarious!  Does that make me a bad person???  Do you think he'll end up needing doggy therapy?  Since little, lovable Charlie is the equivalent of a furry, male Dory from "Finding Nemo", I don't think he even realized he is being laughed at.  All he sees, all he hears, all he lives for is the weasel.  Must catch the weasel, must catch the weasel!  In his extreme focus he fails to see the obstacles right in front of his eyes.

How many times have we been guilty of that very same thing?  I know, for me, the count is too many.  I get a plan in my head, I set a goal, I make a decision and while not listening closely to the Holy Spirit charge full steam ahead and end up crashing right into the wall.  I must remember the safest place to be is along side, not in front of, Him.  He will never lead me into a wall.  I am convinced this tendency alone is a large reason why so many times the Lord will not lay out the whole plan in advance, but reveals it one step at a time as we walk close to Him.  If the path was highlighted in front of us there would be a great temptation to say "thanks, Lord! see ya on the other side" and go tearing off unmindful of the twists and turns in the path ahead.  I once saw a horse go running down a wooded path too quickly for his rider to control him.  When he approached an intersection he had no clue what to do and was going too quickly to receive the guidance the rider was so desperately trying to give him.  He ended up in the bushes.  He was on the right path, but he was going too fast to listen closely to his leader.  When we go racing ahead of the Lord, even if it's down the correct path, we will not be able to receive guidance on the turns and could very well end up on the bushes, or with out noses smashed against an unmoving wall.  It's easy to get excited about what the Lord is doing in our lives and in the lives of those around us, but we must not, in our zeal, go running off ahead of him. Because in our excitement we could very easily be having a dinner of paint and plaster or picking weeds and leaves our of our teeth.  The word has something to say about this subject too. In Isa 30:21 of the message Bible we read:

Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job, urging you on whenever you wander left or right: "This is the right road. Walk down this road."

If our weasel becomes our focus and not the Lord we won't be close enough to hear his voice and that is a recipe for disaster.  So I urge you today to stay close, listen up, don't run on ahead, you'll only get yourself into trouble.  You'll have less need of the AAA of the Holy Spirit to come pull you out of the ditch and put you back on the road again.  (good thing our spiritual insurance rates never go up! but that's another post entirely! lol) 

My goal today is to slow down a little, stay a little closer, and listen a little more intently.  I've spent way too much time in my life climbing out of ditches, bushes and brambles.  It's time to keep it between the white lines, keep hands and arms inside the car at all times, follow all speed limits and arrive alive!  Meanwhile, Charlie and I will be here.  I'll be on the couch throwing a stuffed weasel as I hold an ice pack to my nose.  He'll be the fur ball running after the furry little toy and.....  well, you can guess how his story ends.  Any one have the number for a good doggy plastic surgeon?  I think my puppy may need a nose job!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

How I was blinded by vanilla creamer

Yesterday seemed like a normal day upon it's dawning.  There were no tell tale signs it was anything other than your average Monday.  No shadowy forebodings lingered upon our rising, the sun didn't turn to black and the moon to blood.  Nothing fell from the sky and there was plenty of hot water.  How could we have known what this day would hold? How could we have had any idea it would go down in history as, would forever be known as, THE FRUITY COFFEE INCIDENT OF 2011.  (da da da dum!)

Maybe I should back up here just a little and give you a little history.  J loves his coffee.  He's not your ordinary coffee drinker.  He doesn't just go to the grocery store and buy a pound or two of coffee. No sir-ree Bob!  We have to order our coffee on line.  It comes from places like Yugoslavia or South Africa, or Venezuela or a bunch of other places I can't even pronounce, much less spell.  It all tastes the same to me, tastes like coffee.  Of course the fact that I like my coffee with as much vanilla creamer as coffee may have something to do with that.  It's just coffee.  It's sweet, it's yummy and it helps me wake up in the morning.  How can you go wrong with that?  That's right!  You can't!   J shakes his head at my immature coffee palate.  If I forget to rinse my spoon after stirring my creamer laden cup before stirring his coffee he can tell!  If I make flavored coffee the day before, despite my washing everything thoroughly, he can tell the next morning by the flavor of his coffee!  I have to say, sometimes, it makes me nuts! lol

On the day in question, however, I thought J was the one who had finally jumped the coffee bean, slow boat to java land.  I got up, made his breakfast and made our coffee just like I do every morning. (yeah, I thought I'd throw that in there just to make myself look good! lol)   J came down, took a sip of coffee and got the strangest look on his face.  "This coffee tastes fruity" he said.  Since mine tasted just like it always did (like vanilla creamer) I had no idea what he was talking about.  He insisted I taste his (shudder! no creamer, only sugar!) to see what he meant.  I really couldn't taste anything fruity, although by this time, he was looking a little fruity, if you know what I mean!  So he poured out that cup and made a fresh one with the same results.  By this time he was frustrated and running out of time so that was the end of that, or so I thought.  Several times that day J called me to complain about his coffee.  It seems the to-go cup and the thermos I fixed for him contained the same fruity coffee.  I really didn't know what to make of any of this.  I was sure it was all in his head as I surely didn't taste anything amiss.  I was getting tired of hearing about the fruity coffee and the many theories concerning it's origin.  By the time J got home from work I was so over it!  I made us a pot of coffee and, you guessed it!  He claimed, once again, it was fruity.  I yelled at suggested to him that he make his own cup of coffee this time.  He took the spoon, still wet from being rinsed off and stuck it in the sugar bowl.  When he started shouting I thought he'd found a gold nugget.  I looked at the spoon he was holding up to see a pink substance on it.  It seems the "sugar" had turned pink when it became wet.  Surfer Dude just happened to be standing there in the kitchen when this happened and I asked him if he knew anything about the "pink sugar".  He was trying really hard not to laugh when he informed us that the day before, while making kool-aid a bunch of it had spilled out into the sugar bowl.  He claims he tried to get all of it out of the sugar, but, obviously had missed some.  Obviously! lol

So in the end, J was vindicated about his fruity coffee.  He was not, in fact, two coffee beans short of a full pot.  His coffee was actually fruity.  After I stopped laughing I started thinking. (funny how that happens sometimes)  Why didn't I taste the fruity? Why did it appear to me that my coffee was the same as it had always been?  The thing is, I had never bothered to develop a discerning taste for coffee. It's simply the method by which I receive my morning vanilla flavored caffeine fix.  J, on the other hand, had taken time to savor his coffee, to distinguish the subtle nuances of flavor between the different blends, roasts and varieties.  I am so ok with that.  Just give me my vanilla caffeine and no one gets hurt.  Then I thought of something else.  (so much thinking in one day! where's the tylenol?) I began to wonder what else in my life have I covered with sweet creamer and so disguised the taste that I can't tell when something's not right?  The father of lies, our enemy, is very accomplished at sugar coating things for us.  He tells us "it's okay to hang on to that hurt a little while longer. That person meant to hurt you and by you holding on to that hurt maybe he'll see what he's done and change his ways".  You might hear him say something like "it's okay to be rude behind the wheel on Sunday morning, you don't have to really stop at that stop sign, after all, you can't be late to church. You have to teach Sunday School!"  The pureness of the voice of the Holy Spirit's conviction can be so covered with sickly sweetness we no longer hear it loud and clear as it urges us onto the straight and narrow path.  The problem is, we like the sweetness. Just think of Mary Poppins!  "A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down!"  To our human reasoning these little "sugar drop lies" sound right, they sound good.  But the word has something to say about our human reasoning.  Proverbs 14:12-13 tells us,

^12-13 There's a way of life that looks harmless enough;
   look again—it leads straight to hell.
Sure, those people appear to be having a good time,
   but all that laughter will end in heartbreak. (Message Bible)

I don't know about you, but, suddenly, I'm not too sure I want to be following the ways that look good to me.  I want to live so close to the Lord and know His voice so intimately that I can tell when there is the tiniest thing wrong.  I want to learn the subtle nuances of his voice so perfectly that there is no doubt when he is trying to tell me something.  I want to develop my spiritual ear in the same way J has developed his coffee palate.  If one grain of "fruitiness" drops in I want to know it!  My mind told me there was nothing fruity about that coffee, but J's strongly developed sense of taste detected even the slightest hint of it.  I'm asking God to develop my ability to sense when something is just a little "fruity", when something is just a little bit off so I can tune even more sharply into  what He is saying about any given situation.  That is my goal, to learn to listen to His voice and not to my own reasoning.

We have all recovered here and found our "new normal" in this post fruity coffee household, though we have taken corrective measures to try to prevent such a disaster from occurring again. Surfer Dude is no longer allowed to make kool-aid,  the sugar bowl has a new lid, and I'm thinking of enacting the biblical method of making coffee.  That's where J always makes it.  What?  You didn't know that was biblical?  Sure!  The word says it's "He-brews" not she-brews!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Itimidating Cats and the Dogs Who Love Them

I love my kids. I love my kids and my husband and my pets.  In fact, I love just about all animals, except raccoons and bugs, but bugs don't really count as animals.  Anyway, yesterday I was taking Mumbles to the dentist (who knew 3 root canals would cost so much? 3!).  There is a place in the road where there's a sharp turn as it goes up a little hill with train tracks on top of the little hill.  Confused yet?  Well, as we were approaching the little hill we saw a HUGE turtle.  This was no average sized turtle.  That boy could have made enough soup to feed a small city!  He was smack in the middle of the lane next to us.  Mumbles wanted to stop and take the reptile home, but since it was a snapping turtle I vetoed that idea pretty darn quick.  Little did Mr Turtle know, but a big work truck was coming from the other direction. Because of where he was sitting on the side of the hill the truck (or the guy driving it! lol) couldn't see our hard shelled friend.  I motioned for him to stop and Mumbles climbed out of the car again and moved Snappy to the side of the road where he was safe.  All was right with the word and the land was once again made safe for adventurous turtles everywhere! 

I have to admit, I get a kick out of watching my animals, even my four legged ones! (or as in the case of Leggo, my three legged animals, but that's a story for a different time! )  Take little Charlie for instance.  He's just turned a year old and he's the cutest little black and white dust mop you've ever seen.  He has springs in his legs, loves wearing a sweater and will do just about anything to get at a bacon treat.  What you see is what you get.  He's just Charlie.  I imagine, if he could talk, he would sound a little like a male version of Dory in the Finding Nemo movie, only housebroke.  He has no filter.  If he's happy, you know it, if he's sad, you know it.  When you come home and open the kennel his joy is overwhelming as he throws himself at you with complete abandon.  I can only laugh at his antics.

Then there is Yum Yum. 

Yum Yum is a gianormous Siamese cat we've had for years.  I think he's going on 9 years old now and he is beautiful.  He lives upstairs in Surfer Boy's room.  He has, for the most part become his cat.  You see, Surfer Boy's bed is positioned right by the widow for optimum sunlight exposure and this cat is no dummy.  He knows a good thing when he sees it.  Charlie isn't allowed upstairs, no little kids are allowed in Surfer Boy's room and he has a large expanse of bed which is never made up and is bathed in sunlight most of the day.  All in all, it's pretty much cat heaven.  The thing about Yummy is,  he's a great big softie on the inside but he doesn't want you to know it.  If we've been gone for a couple of days leaving him here without us he doesn't run to the door to greet us upon our arrival home, but he will sit at the top of the stairs and survey the scene as we come in.  When I go then, to pet him,  he gets this "oh good grief! if you must!" attitude, but then snuggles down into my arms and starts to purr.  Unlike Charlie, you can't take him at face value.  I know this about him, but Charlie, it seems does not. 

Yum Yum can make the most hideous noises you can imagine. (It's the Siamese in him)  Charlie is fascinated with him and yet scared of him at the same time.  Earlier this morning the cat decided to bless me with his presence down in the kitchen for a while. (I refuse to think it has anything to do with the fact his food bowl is down here)  He was sitting majestically starring out the widow in that cross-eyed way of his and Charlie caught sight of him.  He was immediately drawn to where Yummy sat but did it in that way we've all seen dogs do, where they want to go somewhere but are scared to so they get really low to the ground, stretch their bodies our and their legs shake.  It's always good for a giggle or two.  Anyway, Yum Yum started making these horrible sounds deep in his chest, almost like he was growling at Charlie.  Then he hissed and I thought I would have a mess to clean up on the floor.  Then, finding no traction on the hardwood floors, Charlie made a cartoon spectacle of himself trying to get away, fur flying!  Yum Yum then calmly walked up the stairs, ignoring Charlie the whole way. 

This is the thing. Charlie was never in any danger.  Yum Yum has no claws!  Even if he had claws he wouldn't know what to do with that dog if I served him up on a silver platter.  He is all talk, or yowl as the case may be.  Because Charlie doesn't know this (I've tried explaining it to him, but we have a bit of a language barrier) he assumes he is about the be eaten alive.  I guess you could say Yum Yum goes about roaring as a lion seeking whom he can devour.  (see where I'm going with this???)  The only power that cat has over my little dog is what the fur ball gives him.  Yummy's power lies in his ability to cause fear to rise up in Charlie.  If he could get over his fear the cat would be powerless. Actually, you could say the cat is already powerless, it's the fear within Charlie that holds the power.  Lose the fear, lose it's power. 

How many times have we heard the enemy roar like a lion in our life and cowered in fear? For me, the answer would be too many times to count.  As sons and daughters of the living God, satan has no power over us, except what we give him.  It is my fear of what he can/may do to me or in my life, that has kept me imprisoned not even looking for a way out.  I am in no danger from him. He can only touch my life if my God allows it. So why do I fear?  My fear hands the devil the power over me.  The word says in 1 John 4:18

¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

The presence of God's love "displaces" fear.   If I allowed God's love to rule in my heart, trust will abide there as well.  The two go hand in hand.  If I am trusting God why should I fear anything?  I am asking the Lord to change my default button from one of fear to one of trust in Him.  I'm tired of always having fear be my first response to anything.  I also will strive to remember one more thing.  Remember the verse that says "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (1Peter 5:8)? What most people don't realize is lions don't roar when they are getting ready to kill or when they are hunting at all.  It's only when they want to be intimidating.  Our enemy wanders around roaring like a lion, but like a lion, can only intimidate, not touch, those who are under the blood of Christ.  Remember that the next time fear grips your heart and you want to run and hide.  Hide yourself in the Lord for He loves you!

In the meantime I'll be here sweeping up fur balls, emptying litter boxes, getting the leash out for our walk, feeding, watering, brushing....  After I'm done with my kids, I'll start on the animals!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor