The Battle of Cinder Block Hill Circa 1983

Don't you just love friends, really good friends that you can share anything with and they don't look at you like you had three heads?  I have been blessed to have a couple of those in my life.  For me they are a rare breed because, usually, I do have three heads at any given time and it's difficult to find someone who can be temporary blind at will.  I was sitting with one such friend recently and the subject turned to our childhoods and the adventures we had back then.  I shared a story with her and I wanted to share here with my on-line friends......

When I was a young teen, my church rented a campground every year up in the north Georgia mountains and we had camp.  I have some really fond memories of those camps, and some not so fond memories, but that's for another time, probably with a good therapist.   It was not a fancy sort of place.  The "cabins" we slept in were, in actuality, long, narrow cinder block buildings with a few mesh covered windows that allowed for zero air movement.  After standing in the August heat in Georgia they were transformed into ovens in which we slowly cooked ourselves every night. 

The showers and bathrooms were also cinder block.  They were one big building divided down the middle by, yet another, cinder block wall, but this wall didn't actually go all the way up to the ceiling.  It stopped a couple of feet short so we could hear everything that went on over on the boys side and they could hear us.  One evening, we were getting ready for bed and the boys were all yelling stuff over at us and we were harassing them back.  All the girls finally finished up and left to go to their cabins except for me.  The boys didn't realize I was there and could still hear them.  I listened as they plotted a water balloon raid on both the girls cabins that night.  I didn't start to get worried until their counselor came in and I was shocked to learn he was in on it.  I stayed and listened like a good spy and heard all the details.

I was so excited! We finally had one up on the boys and could beat them at their own game, or so I thought.  I ran to one of the girls cabins and told them what I had heard.  I explained they needed to shut the shutters on their windows to keep the water balloons out.  There was more hole than mesh on those windows and their beds were right by the windows so they were going to be in mortal danger from boy propelled missiles of water!  I stood there in total disbelief when not one of the believed me.  (I think it may have had something to do with the giant spiders I had managed to slip under a couple of pillows earlier in the week)  I then ran to my own cabin and was met with the same lack of faith there.  Never the less, I went around myself and closed all the shutters while being yelled at and fussed at the whole time by those residing with me in my little cinder block oven. 

Just about the time I settled into bed I heard the first balloon hit the side of the building.  We sat, hot, but dry and listened as they boys relentlessly pummeled our cabin to no avail.  The other cabin was not so lucky.  By the time they figured our I had been telling the truth, it was too late.  Their beds were soaked and so were they!  If only they had listened to the word of the Lord what I had told them!

We laughed, my friend and I, as I retold this story and others about the times I had at the camp in Taccoa GA.  Later, as I thought back on it, my brain did it's own little tilty thing again and I saw it all in a different light.  How important is it to position ourselves in such a place so the Lord can reveal to us the plans of the enemy?  Sometimes, if we are in the right place at the right time, the Lord will pull back the veil and we will see what the devil has in mind for us or for a loved one.  What better way to thwart that than to know in advance what's coming?  This happens if we allow the Lord to guide us, to put us where he wants us, and if we have our ears attuned to hear what we need to. 

Make no mistake about it, we are in a war and our enemy is not throwing water balloons.  He's armed with fiery darts and he doesn't hesitate to shoot them at the beloved of God. (that's us, in case you were wondering....)   How successful would a military campaign be if you knew in advance every move your opponent was planning to make?  So it is that sometimes the Lord lets us see the direction the darts are going to come from so we can get our shields of faith up and ready to defend ourselves and even, when directed by the Lord, what direction to go on the offensive in.  Can you imagine the surprise of those boys if I had been able to convince the girls I wasn't trying to play a joke on them and we had responded with water balloons of our own? 

There's no discharge from the Lord's army and there is no administrative duties either. I know, I admit I have asked for a desk job before!  My goal this week is going to be to try to allow myself to be positioned by the Holy Spirit so when he reveals things I am in the place to hear it.  I don't want to let my guard down and get smacked in the back of the head with a spiritual water balloon because I'm not where I need to be.  Where are you today?  Are you listening hard to the Spirit of the Lord concerning how to proceed in this war we call life?   Do you hear him when the word comes to close up your shutters because there's shelling coming and you need to call in God's napomb?  So stay close, listen up and let the Lord guide you. 

Until next time I'll be here, shinning my shield, collect balloons and planning a revenge many years in the making! 

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Baskets, Bubbles and Rusty Bottoms

Yesterday was a strange sort of day.  It was cold and wet and all around dreary.  I found myself, as is often the case on Mondays, sitting and staring out the back window at the fog encased trees; their spindly, leafless branches reaching in vain to a sky that was already falling around them.  Every muscle in my body was achy and tired.  I'd like to say it was from the extreme physical activity I had been involved in.  I'd like to say that, but I would be lying.  By that point in the day I had managed to jump to conclusions, exercise my right to free speech, go round and round the bush with the teenagers, and do quite a few remote control lifts.  I think I had a right to my exhaustion. 

After a tiring period of mental activity (ie my facebook games) I decided that what I really needed was a hot bath.  If a cup of bubble bath happened to fall in and the candles magically ignite, I was not to be blamed.  Of course, Monday's curse was not to be given the slip.  Right as I was stepping into my steaming hot bath of bubbles my foot caught a cute little basket that has been sitting on the side of my tub for a year and - PLOP - in the water it landed.  Now you would not think this would be the end of the world.  After all, it was full of loofah sponges and decorative soaps and other pretty little things you see around the tub.  The problem was, when it hit the water, the water turned brown, a dirty, nasty brown.  There was no way I was getting in that tub now!  I grabbed the basket and pulled it out, but the damage had already been done. 

It seems the bottom of my pretty little basket was made of a metal mesh.  In the year it had sat on the side of my tub it had been subjected to constant dampness and had rusted.  When it hit the water the rust was released and it made one serious mess!  I had to drain the water and start again and, thanks to the fact I have a miniscule water heater, there was no more hot water.  I stood there in my robe, in the cold, with my candles burning and my bubble bath washing down the drain and cursed the basket makers of the world. 

Into this little drama of mine sneaked a thought.  How much are we, so many times, just like that basket?  We look so pretty sitting there on the side of the tub of life.  We even hold all sorts of useful things. But hidden underneath is a dark rusty heart that no one sees.  We may not even know it's there ourselves.  Then the Lord brings the water of the spirit and as it washes over us, the rusty, dirty heart is made clean and new.  After I saw the mess it had caused I moved my little basket to higher ground where it will not rust again. A basket with a metal mesh bottom had no business on the side of a tub constantly exposed to water.  Often times, when we put ourselves in a place we are not fitted for, we risk allowing rust to build up on our hearts. We may continue on for quite a while and everything looks great on the outside, but deep down decay is setting in. 

My prayer this week is for the Lord to know my heart, to search out any places that have become rusty.  I want to re-evaluate my life and ensure I have not gotten myself into situations where I don't belong, places the Lord never sent me.  I don't want to be like the little basket with the metal mesh bottom.  I have enough to worry about with the size of my bottom, I don't need to worry about if it's rusty or not!

So, until next time, I'll be here, unbubbled, but, hopefully, rust free. 


Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Buggy trees, city lights, and New Zealand

I am one prone to day dream and while this may not come as any surprise to those who know me I'm sure there are those who see me as completely competent, always in control, level headed and right on track.  I'm sure, really, I am sure, surely there's one person who sees me this way!  No?  Well, let me continue to dwell in the land of fantasy where I am mayor and if I don't like you, you don't exist.  But I digress.....

One day earlier this week I was watching "Reflections" on tv.  Now for those of you who aren't familiar with this program, let me explain.  It's a lovely half hour of gorgeous pictures from around the world that is set to beautiful music with scriptures that come and go on the screen.  It's really peaceful and I frequently use it to escape my children refocus after a hectic day as a mom.  On this day there was a segment of pictures taken in New Zealand.  If you've ever seen the movie "The Lord of the Rings", you know how beautiful it is.  There was a picture of a valley where the mountains were so close together they were almost touching.  Covering the sides of each mountain were deep forest, luscious and deep green.  I remember thinking, as I gazed at the picture, "I wish I were right there, right there by that tree. That's it, I wish I were a deer on the side of that mountain, or maybe a squirrel in that tree, yeah, a squirrel, a deer would have trouble standing on a hill that steep.  I'll be a squirrel, or better yet, I'll be a bug, yeah, that's it, I'll be a bug on that tree right there.  It's settled then, I'm a bug on that branch of that tree right there."

As I gazed at the picture before me and I imagined my little buggy self swallowed up in that place, I realized something.  If I were, indeed, a little bug on that little branch of that little tree on the side of that big huge mountain, I would not be able to see it the way I did at that moment.  I wouldn't be able to see much past my own little leaf and my own little buggy home.  My world would not necessarily be one of beauty, at least not to my own tiny bug eyes.  I like a leaf and a branch and a tree as much as the next person, but they couldn't compare to the wondrous view found up higher.

That, my friends, is when the light went on.  How many times have we looked at our surroundings and saw only the same old leaf, the same old branch on the same old tree?  How many times have we seen only what is right in front of us and missed the bigger picture?  Sometimes we need to be reminded that there is, in fact, a bigger picture, a picture we often miss as we live little lives on little branches everywhere.

Sometimes we all need a new perspective, a new view.  I remember one night J and I were treated to a night in a luxury hotel in downtown Atlanta.  I had worked downtown, had been through downtown on many occasions and had never thought of it as a place of beauty.  It was dirty, nasty place with too many cars, too many people, and too much stress.  On this night, though, we were staying on one of the top floors in the high rise hotel and the room had one full wall of nothing but floor to ceiling windows.  As J pulled back the miles of curtains and the view was exposed it took my breath away.  The lights spilled out before us as if the stars had suddenly come loose from their moorings and fell to earth to dance among the streets of the city.  The beauty was spectacular.  I had never, in all my time spent downtown seen the magnificence of the cityscape.  It took a new perspective, it took coming up higher.

It is a lesson I plan on applying to my own life; this idea of coming up higher.  When my life seems less than spectacular, less than appealing and I'm convinced my lot is to live a life of drudgery and compromise, I hope I am reminded of that night, and that little bug on the hill side.  The Lord calls to us to come up higher.  When we allow Him to change our perspective and see with His eyes, we see the beauty that is our life.  Hopefully, we will understand we play a part in something much bigger than ourselves and our own little leaf.

So rise up! Rise up and be blessed!  Blessed by His view of our lives.  My goal this week will be to keep a little bug in mind, a little bug, a leaf, a tree, and a forest covered hillside, but most of all the beauty that encompasses it all.  We are but one piece, may we allow the Lord to lift us up to see the puzzle as a whole and to understand our part in it.

Until next time, I'll be here day dreaming, but this time, not about being a bug, unless it's a bug that has hopped a ride aboard an eagle!

Soaked in His blessings,

Spokenfor

Starbucks, checklists, and a whole lot of "shoulds"

Sitting in my local coffee shop a few days ago, I indulged in one of my favorite not-so-nice habits; I eavesdropped on those around me.  I justify this by telling myself if they wanted privacy they shouldn't be sitting in public having that particular conversation.  Anyway, as I sat there straining to hear the ladies next to me minding my own business I couldn't help but over hear the 2 ladies sitting at the next table.  One lady remarked to the other "well, I just went ahead and read 7 whole chapters from the New Testament. That way, I can mark that off my list for the whole week".  Wow! 7 whole chapters at one time?!?  I was clearly sitting next to a spiritual giant. (sorry, let me wipe that up, I dripped sarcasm all over your keyboard....)  Ok, so I'll be nice.  It was good that this woman was taking time to read the word, but, of course, it made me stop and think. (I hate it when that happens!) 

How many times have I picked up my Bible, read a few chapters and thought "there, that takes care of that for now"?  How many times have I viewed time in the word or in prayer as something to be checked off the list until the next day instead of realizing time spent with my heavenly father is the source of my life?  I heard someone speak recently about the importance of obedience and I cannot argue with that, but I can say I have learned from experience it is not likely that I will be able to "will" myself to obey very often.  Obedience springs from a heart of relationship.  When I was a child, I obeyed my mother, not because I feared her or because of what I might gain from her if I did, but because I love her.  She will never know the things I did not do because I knew if I got caught she would be hurt.  I have learned recently it is the same with my heavenly parent as well.  When my heart is completely in love with him obedience flows naturally out of it. 

Look at it this way, as a mother of teenagers, parenting can be difficult.  Sure, I can take away privileges or find other ways to force obedience, but that obedience is shallow.  It never touches the heart.  It may make life a little more pleasant for me in the short run, but if their hearts are never touched, never changed, what have I really accomplished.  The Lord looks at it the same way.  If we are only practicing our "christianese" because of what we think it might get us, it gets us no where.  There is no currency that can buy the Lord's favor or His blessings, not even obedience.  Sure, God loves to bless us, especially when we obey, but not if that is our motive for obeying.  The word says "see ye first the kingdom of God".

Lets look at that word "seek".  Websters dictionary defines it as "to go in search of, or to try to discover".  This is not a static word, this is an active word.  If we are seeking the kingdom of God, it is an action that denotes intensity, not lackadaisical semi-participation.

What are we really seeking when we practice check list Christianity?  We are seeking to please ourselves.  We are seeking a way to numb the voice down inside that calls us to a closer, more personal relationship with the one who loved us before the foundations of the world.  We are trying to gain favor with God by going back again under the law that Christ came to free us from.  Yes, even Bible reading and prayer can become works of law if our hearts have the wrong motive.  Think of the pharisee the Lord spoke of who prayed so all could hear him.  Do you believe his prayer availed him much?   Do you think the motive of his heart was to come into a closer relationship with the father?   It would seem his purpose was to look good to those around him.  He could then travel on his way with his self-righteous knowledge that he had prayed in the temple so now God was pleased with him.  No! that's not how it works.

There is nothing we can do and nothing we can say that will gain us more or less of the love of God than we already have.  As his children we are righteous and holy in his sight.  Does that mean we just go out and live anyway we want to? NO! That means, as we develop our relationship with Him our hearts are changed and as our hearts are changed so our lives, inside and out, are changed.  If we want to obey because we love him that is a far cry from trying to make ourselves obey so we can be good enough to enter his presence.  The Lord is grieved by this attitude.  We need to do nothing to be granted entrance into his presence except believe on Him.   He longs for us to be close.  The word says "He sings over us".  Does that sound like a God who is watching to see if you're good enough to come close? 

My goal this week is going to be to tear up my check list, to throw out all of the "shoulds" I saddle myself with and simply walk with the knowledge that I am loved, I am desired, I am cherished by the God of all the universe.  If you can ever really get a hold of that concept it is so freeing!  As we walk closer and closer with Him our hearts are changed and so our lives are changed.  That is the key.

So next time you're in the neighborhood of Starbucks drop on in.  I might be there, but I can't promise I won't be listening in. So be careful what you say, you may see it in print one day!!! 

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Stiff-legged is not a good look for me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyReSMJw5MI

I hope you watched the short video I posted above.  The quality is not that great, but it was the only one I could get to load from youtube.  The link is a different video and one I recommend highly that you watch!   You really should visit youtube for yourself and look for fainting goats.  I hurt myself, I honestly hurt myself laughing.  It seems these goats have a genetic anomaly that causes all their muscles to contract and stiffen whenever they are startled or scared. This causes them to fall over with all 4 legs sticking straight out! (I snorted when I saw it, I admit, it is snort worthy)   I'm not sure what purpose this would serve in the wild, but I do know it makes for some hilarious viewing! I'm sure I got my ab work in for the day.

Of course, you should know by now, I can't just leave it at that.  You see, I first saw this phenomenon while watching Mythbusters with Scamp.  They set out to see if it was true and they did so in typical Mythbuster fashion.  Through his hysterical giggles Scamp mentioned how funny it would be if people were like that.  After laughing with him, the cogs in my tilted brains started turning.  Some people, if you think about it, are just like those fainting goats; immobilized by fear.

How many times have you been tracking along the path the Lord has laid out for you, happily minding your own business when suddenly the enemy pops out from behind a tree, yells "boo!" and we promptly freeze in our tracks and fall over?  Those goats didn't have to be in any real danger, they just had to believe they were and their bodies took over and down they went.  You might say it is their default setting.  There have been times in my life, I must admit, when I too spent more time frozen, stiff legged on the side of the path instead of walking on with the Lord. 

Fear can immobilize like nothing else.  Remember when you were a kid and you went through a haunted house or watched something too scary on tv?  Remember that feeling when your adrenaline started pumping, your mouth went dry and your stomach was in your throat?  Remember how you felt frozen in place?  I guess it's a sort of if-I-don't-move-you-won't-see-me reaction.  Well that doesn't actually work.  If there is a crazed, brain-eating zombie stumbling around your living room, sitting completely still is not going to make you invisible.  It does, however, serve the devil's purpose if you fall over stiff legged every time he makes a face at you.  It's kind of hard to accomplish a whole lot from that position.  Can you imagine it?  You're trying to tell your neighbor about the Lord, the devil sticks his tongue out at you and - BOOM! - down you go.  You're trying to spend a little time in the word and prayer when the enemy pops up and  - PLOP!- you hit the floor.  While it might be entertaining for someone watching, it wouldn't be very productive and yet, so many times, that is what we do. 

It's time to rise above our tendency to hit the mat.  We are the children of the king, we have nothing to fear.  The word puts it this way in 2 Timothy 1:7

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.


We have no reason to give in to the spirit of fear.  It does not come from the Lord.  I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of falling over all the time.  Picking dirt from my teeth and leaves from my hair is getting a little old, not to mention the unnecessary bruising!  My goal will be to stay on my feet and remind myself of the scripture above, and the next time the devil tries to his scare tactics I'll remember those goats and do better at remaining upright.  Stiff legged is not a good look for me.


So till next time, I'll be here, staying upright and trying to get the grass stains out of all my clothes. 


Soaked in His blessings,
 Spokenfor