Been wanting to write a few things down for awhile now...I had a conversation with a dear friend recently who is coming out of years of abuse and alcoholism and she continues to say  I don't know who I am. And in various ways refusing to claim any identity that is hers in Christ Jesus.   I knew no matter what I said, that she wasn't hearing what I said about who she is in Christ Jesus.

 

It got me thinking about who I am, what is my identity!  One of the things I have been much aware of is that since my broken femur and hospitial stay with rehab almost 12 months ago a whole lot of things have changed. Some of it started 12 years ago when I first read a book that introduced me to the Kingdom of God and I first began to actually understand about my identity in Christ.  It isn't something that "grows" It is..for Christ Jesus is the I AM and HE dwells in me by Holy Spirit.  He is fully formed in me. So my identity in Christ is FULL..not growing. One the other hand, I, human being, am growing in understanding of Who HE is in Me.

In 2013 my life changed  in other ways when  the book was put in my hands. After years of a late career as a Chemical Dependency Professional, I found myself unemployed at age 68. In December 2012 and January2013 as the year ended and a new one started, I had been encouraged to make a list of things that stirred me that were posted on social media that I sensed were about 2013. On March 13, every aspect of that list was fulfilled as my years as a Chemical Dependency came to an end over a 36 hours period.  It was a new season and the book The Rhema Code was waiting to introduce me to the significance of being a part of the Kingdom of God.and the identity that is mine in Him. Oh I'd heard many sermons on the Kingdom before and since...but it was this book that Holy Spirit used to reveal to me who I was in Him. I continue to learn more of who HE is in Me...beyond what I would call head knowledge.  

Life took on a whole new meaning after the end of my employment. One of the things set in place even before my last day of work was a painting class  I had signed up for which I woul attendefaithfully until COVID made it difficult to gather. A whole different part of me came into focus along with some traveling that had been planned during "vacations" including a conference in Murfreesboro Tennessee.During the year after I was no longer emplyed  was able to make a visit to family in South Carolina and then visit two prophetic friends in other areas of South Carolina.  None of these things were "big events" but simple times in which I was learning of who Jesus was in me and who I was in Him.  Learning how to allow HIM to be in me. 

That next year ,,2014, my husband and I  put in a new garden and I got to have my  own real garden. My husband  Gene was such a jewel doing anything he was able to facilitate what I had need of. Generally he stayed busy in his automotive shop and I would take cookies to him and the occasional person who stopped in to visit and learn from him. As I grew to know who I was in Christ and who He was in me...I learned more and more about my self and realized that it wasn't something that was happening with my husband. He lived in his world that was securely protected from any revelation of things in his past. But he was very much present with me and adored me and called me his "child bride." I was 6 years younger than he .

There was much learning to be gained about where I fit...I realized that the almost 13 years as a Drug and Alcohol Counselor had indeed been the niche that the LORD had provided for me as I transitioned from a marriage of 20 years with an abusive alcoholic  to the life of a single woman with two daughters. who got hired as a chemical dependence counselor while going back to college to get her state certification.

Three years and I dated here and there and met a man who treated me like I had not been treated,,,not fancy as we didn't do fancy. But he seemed to listen and he cares about me and my children and became a part of my world while I worked become a licensed chemical dependency professional. He was a long time sober "alcoholic" and had no reservations about my line of work. We married in 2007.And we were very  comfortable together and yet I knew full well, that there was not a "spiritual connection." He knew he married a licensed minister and never put any limitations on my ministry activities which were generally minimal. But at the same time, I knew that while we were comfortable together and had great respect for each other, that what I saw and knew in the LORD by Holy Spirit would not be something I would be able to share with him. It wasn't that I was "afraid" to share as I was "free" to tell him anything and shared what I was free to share with him. The excitement of a dream or a "God thing" that happened...I would find sometimes he listened but it wasn't a shared experience and I knew that and eventually it was OK. I had Him, and He was My Peace.  

Sadly my husband  saw the disappointment I had in dealing with my fellow Christians and seemed in some ways more understanding of the short comings of my "brethern in Christ" than at times I grasped,  :I didn't seem to have any identity amoung the brethern. Seemed some lies and half truths from 30 years ago seemed to follow me.

My precious husband died in 2023 dying  4 months after being diagnosed with lung cancer along with precious diagnosed COPD and cystic fibrosis.  He went peacefully surrounded by his friends. And that first year after we had been together for over 19 years was so busy with taking care of things in his shop and stuff on the property that a year went by without really thinking too terribly much about being single. My daughter's mother in law had lived with us for the last 5 years and so I still had someone with me and we had lunch and dinner together and I continued to serve as a "loose" caregiver to her. Life wasn't a whole lot different until August 24, 2024.

That morning about 11:30 am I took a letter out to post in the mail box and walking back I passed out in the driveway. I came to consiousness in what I call #10 pain and was able to call to Charmaine and she brought out her cell phone and we called 911. That was the beginnig

 What was the beginning?

That's something that I never understood growing up. I was in my thirties when I happened to find my dad home alone in the kitchen of the family home, and I inquired of him as to the difference in the way my sister and I grew up. His comment was nothing spectacular or mind riveting...No real difference, He said. And then he added something I was to hear for the first time. "You were two when you got very sick and we took you to the hospital. The doctor stood with us and told us that there was nothing more they could do for you. That you were in the hands of the LORD."  Then he told me how they committed me into the LORD's hands and left me there in the hospital as they went home.  

That was the only big difference that happened in my life as a child versus the upbringing and the way my sister Barbara Jean was raised. Except, that is, that I continued to have health issues. Tonsilitis was a continual problem and at about age 4 it was decided that my tonsils would be removed.  I remember so clearly being told I'd get ice cream afterwards, but no one told me I wouldn't be able to swallow what was in those days such a special treat!! The day of the surgery is well implanted in my mind even 76 years later. I screamed and screamed as the attending person stood over me slowly giving me ether that ended my screamed. I remember also the day my folks took me to a movie they wanted so badly to see...Oklahoma. They arrived before the end of the previous movie which was a war story and the child in their arms was screaming and continued to scream into Oklahoma....meaning that they had to leave the movie.During such things I was total unaware of my sister Barbara being present. 

Then there was the trip to Spokane with my mother and my sister. I was 4 or 5 and it seemed while I could scream and cry, I didn't talk. A specialist was consulted and I so clearly remember that day...or was it my mother relating the story to me, I am not sure the source of this memory. The doctor turned to my mom and said that the reason I wasn't talking was that my sister and her did my talking for me. I didn't need to talk.

DId anything change after that? I don't know other than if my sister or mother were asked, they would say that once I began to talk I never quit talking!! 

After I had my tonsels out they found that I was having many of my medical issues from the raw milk that we drank reguarlly. So about the age of 4-5 things began to change as with my tonsels out and a change to pasturized milk  my health issues faded. 

During these years I havefew remembrances of things involving my sister...a bike ride one day that went by a man's house that had plums and we stopped and ate some of the plums. Later the man called our parents and said they had sprayed those plums that day. We had been told, if I remember correctly not to eat any of them, but we had anyway. We only suffered from my parent's rebuke. Was that one of the times I got the hair brush or the yard stick over my rear end...more than once to see it break in my mother's hands?

It was not until I was my 60s did I understand some of what occured with my sister and I that helped me understand some of her actions as I grew up. When I was 18 living at home, in my first year of community college, my sister who was pregnant with her second child, visited with her young son. One day she was standing, ironing something when a car went by driven by a young man that my sister had known in high school and with whom I had made acquaintence. It was like anger came out of somewhere, and I heard her say, I don't like you, I will never like you and I will never tell you why!"

I was too shocked to say or ask any questions but those words reverberated throughout much of my life as I lived with various forms of her cruel actions now explained by her dislike of me. I was in my mid 30s however, before I came to realize that I had been spending my whole life trying helplessly to please my sister. I had begun a fresh walk with the LORD in those days and many of my fears which I learned had their root in the fear of death that got imprinted that day in the hosptial when I was 2, when the doctor told my folks to go home as there was nothing more they could do. I was left alone as a 2 year old with the knowledge I could die? That isn't done in this century..parents would never leave that sick of a child...but I was left and it was many years before I understood the deep fear that plagued me throughout my early life.

Growing up even my parents would tell folks..Meri Alyce is always afraid!! But they had no understanding of why or what to do with this "fearful" child who also seemed to push the boundaries of their tolerance.  One day my parents were driving us from Morton to church in Centralia as we usually did the first Sunday of the month, to have communion with the church family we had long been a part of. It was a snowy day and our car stalled going up the hill having crossed the Bear Canyon bridge and we slid into a snow bank. Thankfully a Milk truck came along and pulled us out. Yes, I was afraid, scared to death but no one really seemed to understand. Then there was the day we were on the same road, it was summer and my folks were on the way to the same church to drop me off for JuniorHigh Church camp. And the car broke down. Along came one of my sisters high school hot rodder friends and he drove us the rest of the way at what I remembered to be breakneck speed. My folks made sure the guy driving knew that Meri was afraid of everything and to ignore her pleas to slow down or whatever concern I was making...which I don't remember. But whatever it was, I was annoying them being afraid!

When we lived in Morton, my bedroom was at the front of the house looking out over the front porch with view of the sidewalk and the street. My sister was in high school and was dating a fellow my folks weren't too happy about. If I remember rightly his name was Jack and he was a drummer in a band and had slicked back hair of the 50s. My sister hated it that her comings and goings with Jack were all "monitored" by her little sister who was always keeping track of her at her bedroom window. Little did she know, that it wasn't so much curiosity as it was my deep "fear" that something would happen to my sister. 

When we moved to Centralia in 1958, I was a 8th grader and my sister who we now called Jean because in Morton there were two other Barbaras...Jean was a senior and not a happy one having to move from where she'd been happily a part of the Morton community for 3 years. I have no remembrance of any interaction with my sister during those remaining years in Morton when I dutifully went off to pick strawberries.......oh yes...maybe I do remember that my sister who always excelled, reported to my parents that I would just sit down in the fields and not work all day. I was a 6th  grader at that time..So I continued to be the nuisance of a little sister....

In Centralia, Jean graduated and moved to Portland while I went on to go to 9th grade and then start high school as a sophmore which was the system of education at the time. I excelled in high school, active in band and in the dating field, with the same boyfriend for three years in high school. On occasion when my sister would come home, she would try to humiliate me infront of my boyfriend and get my parents upset with me for some reason. This was before I understood that she deeply disliked me, so her behavior always left me devastated, Whenever there was an opportunity she would triangle against me and my parents. In later years she did that with my first husband, calling me "mentally ill" to him in my presence and humiliating me knowing his passivity would keep him from standing up for me. She went as far as sitting on his lap at family events fully recorded in family holiday photos. 

Needless to say I wasn't the most pleasant sister to deal with either. In the late 60s we both lived in Northern California. My husband was in the Army in the area near Petaluma California where we lived and Jean and Les and the two kids lived over across the way less than an hour a way. Those visits were troubling....I was arrogant and narrow minded and clearly everything I did drew my sister ire and we argued horribly, one time making a scene in the street of the trailer court where we lived in Cotati. Over what...some nonsense difference of how we  responded to our young children. I was as much at fault as my sister. There was no way the two of us could have a reasonable conversation...yet I wanted so badly to have her approval.

From that point on for several years there was no peace between us. My kids went to visit her with their grandparents and their one memory of that time was being told they must never put their hands on the walls of her house or she would make them wash the walls!!!My son Tim idolalized his cousin Mark and as they grew up he admired Mark's knowledge of technology and his job as a young man and was absolutely devastated by his suicidal death, something I sadly have never talked with him about.

My second marriage to Chuck brough a whole different relationship with my sister. Jean dispised Chuck because for all her dislike of me, she was deeply opposed to his violence and control. In like manner, Chuck, being the controller he was, knew my sister's "game".  It was strangely much of his talk about my relationship to my sister, that helped me learn to stand up to be my own person along with the work that the LORD JESUS was doing in my life.  His on going telling me just to tell her "f off" just reminded me that I could speak graciously and stand true to whatever it was that was important to me, rather than yielding to the pressure to plese my sister.  I got to learn more how to stand in my own identity, little that I had at this point, in the fall of  1986 . I was pregnant with Holly who was born in December and helping my mom prepare for their 50th Wedding anniversary. My sister lived in California and had insisted that she wanted to do all the planning and was bringing all the stuff that would be needed.  The one thing she didn't plan was for coffee. My husband was an avid coffee drinker and indicated he'd like to have the coffee pot going the day of the gathering. So my mom decided to have the Mr. Coffee going in the kitchen where Gene could easily refill his coffee cup or anyone else who wanted coffee. When Jean arrived and found that there was coffee pot going, she threw a horrible fit but the coffee pot remained as it wasn't there for her benefit or there to harm her plans in any way.

Later there was an issue over my mother's 90th birthday the gathering at the church where my mother attended, my good friend Joyce and I were visiting and she asked about flowers for the gathering...and I toldher that there were only flowers on the cake table...and she loved my parents and decided that she would go gather fall flowers from the various stores around so that there were flowers on each of the tables....they looked so pretty and mom and dad were tickled!!

But Jean was livid..so much so that she didn't speak to me throughout that gathering, to the degree that family were well aware that Jean was on the warpath but didn't know why. On Sunday, their 50th anniversary was to be celebrated after church service in Olympia..the previous was in the fellowship hall of the Chehalis Baptist church where Mom and Dad had previously pastored and had many friends.

The Saturday celebration was at the family home in Centralia and on Sunday there was a celebration after church at First Baptist in Olympia where my folks attended.  My husband Chuck was replacing the diesel engine in our Impala with a gas engine and needed that Sunday to finish that vehicle so it would be operating for the family on Monday morning when he went to work. So he opted to stay home from the celebration. Les found out about it and made mention that he would also have liked to have stayed home but that wasn't acceptable to Jean.  It was a warm day and I was  pregnant and it was my job to bring the remaining anniversary cake home in my little Honda from Olympia. I stopped  at Hub City Transfer where Chuck was getting our family car back up and running with the new gas engine, and he and his coworker each had a piece of the anniversary cake and then I drove the 2 minutes on to my folk's house. I had my plan in place. Since I was very tired, I would leave the cake which I had just checked which was just fine, in the car and go on in and sit down a spell before emptying my car. And that is just what I did. My sister met me at the back door, and demanded I give her my keys to bring the cake in. I assured her I had just checked the cake and it was fine and I was going to sit down and would bring things in a bit later. That wasn't acceptable!! I quietly went and sat down in the front room and Jean stormed. Mom and Les each in their chairs in the front room as Jean twirled profanities and got herself so upset that she finally exited to "take some medication" out in their travel trailer. It was the first time, that it was clearly seen that I WASN"T THE PROBLEM!! My mom saw that I had done nothing deserving of such a angry fit...though she and Les were scared to death at what they saw and were totally silent and never did I hear my mother discuss the event. But this was a similar scenario that had repeated itself over years. I did something Jean didn' tlike and she threw a few and I got blammed for upsetting folks. I WASN'T UPSET this time. I was shaking in my boots but I had done what I said I had planned and was confident in what I had chosen and left the results up to Jean. One time years before a boyfriend had come to dinner with my folks and Jean was visiting. My mom had made her cranberry muffins and somehow they got really soggy. She and I had talked about this prior to dinner and during dinner I said something to my mom about how they turned out. And Jean railed at me for talking like that...in front of my guest. I looked at her and said, I was talking to my mom, not you. And with that she stood up, slammed her way in anger into the kitchen saying what I don't remember. But I was always the blame for causing trouble.....My mom and I knew that what I said wasn't rude..or wrong and was actually just a matter about her muffins that we both knew about and I'd commented on.yep they were a bit "moist." LOL!!  NO, In those days I was still sucking all that stuff inside...still so wanting to please my sister and still unaware that it was so wrongly the focal of my life and made me a target.

In 2008 my mother got a UTI and got sick and was lying to us about what she was eating. We had Ensure and things and checked on her daily and she'd tell us that she'd had such and such for breakfast but little did we know that the UTI had her brain messed up and she wasn't telling us the truth. She ended up passing out on the floor of her kitchen and her body temp was 67 when the Aide Unit found her and took her to the hosptial.  The doctor told me as I sat beside her that night, as she was encased in plastic tubes that were slowly warming her body that if she survived the night she'd live a good while. She survived the night and went on to live into the next year for 6 months after spending some time in rehab. She could not return to her home as she was weak and in need of assistance for most activities. and it worked out to have her in my home. I was working and my daughter Cyndee lived next door and she would watch Mom drom 8am -8pm the four days a week that I worked. And then i did the night shift being up with her several times in the night to the commode. It was a wonderful time with my mom. 

My mom and I were never "on the same page" Mom was more like my sister...and I was more like my dad. My sister and my dad were always at odds....I remember when Jean came home from California and it was in the time when "rights" were the big talk...and she badmouthed my dad over some trivial thing to his horror and that of us watching. She humiliated him and then said "she had every right to call him anything she wanted." I loved my mom and my dad, and while I got busy with my own life and didn't spend the time with them I could, I do not think I was ever openly disrespectful of them. My dad didn't underestand me any more than my mother however. My dad was a private person and emotionally was not expressive nor was my mother. She was a giver and a doer and loved to give gifts which she was always blessing the kids and I with.  Dad didn't know how to give gifts and one time when an anniversary or a birthday was coming I talked wto him about getting something for my mom that SHE would value. And he ended up getting her a Fostoria white hobnailed vase that she so valued for years and that sat in a prime location on her piano often with a bouquet of roses in it...which incidently is in my house nowadays and is often what I have a bouquet of roses in.  Dad was a black and white person who dealt mostly with his intellect. His relationship with the Lord Jesus, tended to be more in the basis of understanding and knowledge rather than personally applicable except as it was in terms of seeing others which usually fell into some category of right or wrong, or heart felt empathy based on a perceived injustice. He often married folks who could find no pastor to marry them because they had been divorced, something I didn't understand for years not knowing until I was a teen ager that my dad had been divorced early in his life when his first wife had wandering feet and was "returned to her father." It was during those years that my dad supposedly lost his full head of curly red hair, which had given him the name Red growing up and in high school. I only saw pictures of my dad with that kind of hair so traumatic was that divorce and time of infidelity which in many ways followed my dad all his life as generally it was not known in the congregations he pastored that he was a divorcee as that was still unacceptable in those days.

When my mom lived with me, many things began to be made known. One day she told me that she and dad had "not prepared Jean for my birth." I had begun to understand that  over the years. My sister was an only child...a special child as they had waited four or five years after marriage for my mom to get pregnant and Jean was born in 1941..a SPEcial GIFT FROM THE lord...and that was how she was treated for 4 years UNTIL yet a second SPECIAL CHILD...was conceived...oops...yes, they didn't expect to have a second child as my father's sperm count was very low. So when the second child was conceived, she too was a "Special child"...oops..can't have two special children. My mom explained that th⁹ey never thought about Jean's response to her pregnancy or the birth of a sister being in "competition" to her "special only child status."  And for that my mother asked forgiveness. As my mom lived in my house 24.7 for 6 months she learned that my home with Gene was a "quiet peaceful place" dispite the tumult of my mother's illness and both Gene and I working. She enjoyed the peace filled times that 6 months. When my sister came to visit in  that spring it "just happened" in God's providence that the week she planned to come my daaytime caregiver who was my daughter who lived next door, needed to have her teeth pulled that week. So it worked out well to have Jean carre for mom in the mornings when I left for work until I got home in the evenings.  What a special time it was...for the first time in my mom's life, she saw the difference between my sister and I. Remember, she always saw me as the trouble with my sister...I was always the cause of stuff. During that week, my mom saw the difference between the "way my sister treated her and how I treated her."  I had already seen this..for whenever my sister was around my mom was put in the role of a child without a mind of her own. Jean made the decisions and my mom, out of fear, never disagreed with Jen to any extent for fear of Jeans wrath. It was so different with mom and I. I t  We went to lunch one day and then to KMart for her prescriptions and at the counter the clerk started talking to me..and my mom quickly said..I handle my own medicines!!!  My mom was my mom and always had her own mind and I knew better than to ever treat her like she was not able to make her own decisions...even when she "needed help" with those decisions or began clearly not able to handle the full responsibility.

What to do when she would pass, was a subject that often happened between her and I. To begin with my mom used to say...Cremate me, I don't want to be in the ground where the worms can eat on me! And I knew that People's Memorial was set up for whatever end of life we were to decide. We went over the paper work for songs and stuff months before death's door was very close. One day after we had talked and I had shared my feelings about cremation, my mom, in the presence of my daughter Cyndee, said.Meri, you are free to do what you need to do. You can bury me. The plan was to bury her in Ethel Cementary which was close to where we lived and actually bore my mom's name..Ethel Ellen Brown.  My sister somehow thought that I went over my mom's desire to be cremated in making my decision to bury her. But that was not the case and for some reason my sister chose to use that as the reason sshe ended relationship with me...the fall AFter  my mom passed in June 2009;

When Jean took care of my mom for that week, there were some very difficult things that took place. One night I picked up new liners for mom's dentures and when I brought them home, Jean proceeded to dig out the permanent liner of mom's dentures..........WHAT?? it made her dentures unusuable and at this point she was too disabled to go to the denturist and get new permanent liners put in....

I will nevr know all that took place while I was working that week...but on the day when my husband came at 1pm to take Jean back to the airport, my mom sat down in the big leather recliner and said, I never thought 1pm would come!!  The pressure of her in the house was gone!! And my husband reported that on the way to the airport, had he been any other than the kind of gentle guy he was he would have pulled along the side of the road and left my sister stranded so grievious was her talk on the way to the airport. She said how horrible it was to have to stay in Meri's house for a week...and made comments trying to suggest discord between me and my girls which was not at all valid and other things that my humble kind husband Gene took great exception to.  When he returned home, he made it clear that if Jean and Les were to come to visit Mom,  they no longer would have the privilege of putting their RV on the Winlock property as he had previously offered, since she do disliked everything about me and OUR home. And he made it clear, that when she came, that she needed to know that Cyndee would be in charge, and that they were welcome to visit off and on for limited times each day...but that Jean would not have charge of mom's care.  How to tell Jean this?  For two weeks I waited upon the Lord to know how to tell them what we had decided since Jean had indicated just how dispicable she thouught my home was and how little she thought of me.  And after working through the hurt and anger, I wrote what I was least uncomfortable with detailing the need for them to find some place locally to stay in their RV and to plan times to visit when it worked out with Cyndee's care.

The result of this...was BEHIND MY BACk she sent a letter to the pastor who did my mom's memorial service and for whatever reason he read it to the whole congregation in which she said she was not allowed to come visit my mom on Mother's day...and who knows what else was said...I was shocked...why the pastor would read that when I was the one arranging the service and not even talk to me about whether it was true or not?  A few months later I had sent a necklace of Austrailian crystal to my sister that needed restrung and she indicated that she didn't want it. I was going to visit a friend in SanDieage and suggested I might stop by and pick up the necklace and visit. It was then. 5 months after mom passed and I'd sent stuff to Jean that she wanted or I thought she might want..and done all I coudl from my end...pictures, etc...and I got THE LETTER, saying because I had disrespected my mother they did not ever want to see me and were disowning me.....for years I sough to undo that...cards, flowers on occasions, apologies...how did I offend her so much that she would break off contact with her ONLY blood relative? Yes, we had major differences, but she was MY SISTER..we'd been sisters for  64 years. I loved my sister...has shared everything I could with my sister despite her negative responses. I remember the day I called to let her know Mom had been taken to the hosptial by ambulance due to a prolific nose bleed the EMTs coudn't stop. I called her as I went out the door and her comment was...Meri, let her die!! WHAT?????? They just put a baloon in her nose and she lived for several months...while it could have been life threatening, and she was terminal, she still had a good measure of life....It wasn't in me to chose life or death for her...

 In the wake of Charlie Kirk's death, we have seen across the globe the rising up of a particular young people expressing their devotion to the young man who had successfully stood up and talked about God Family and country and had people not only listening but motivated to stand up courageously and share their own faith and beliefs. It is clear that the LORD GOD by His Spirit is using this time to bring perhaps thousands into awareness of the Kingdom of God and receive the new life that is promised to those who yield control of their lives to the power of the LORD Jesus Christ who died and was buried and rose to life on the 3rd day and is seated at the right hand of his Father God.

As we see these things happening and rejoice over what appears to be a time of "ingathering", we are also mindful that we do not know the fullness of what is being accomplished in what appears to be the closing of the age of the Gentiles. As we see the work of Holy Spirit drawing people into Life in Jesus Christ, there are other purposes of God that are being not only set in motion but invigorated that will accomplish many of the "end time" events written in the bible. For those who are seasoned in the Word of God, we are being cautioned to be aware of the times....things are not all as they seem as there is still the force of wickedness that is building up in the globe to bring about the last days reign of antichrist in some form or another.

These are days to be wise, to seek the very wisdom of the LORD Himself as the path before us is unlike anything we have walked in the lifetime of most believers...and we know not what that path will hold.Im not sure that there is  time to "prepare"...perhaps the question is have you, are you not only prepared but ready and even now stepping forth in the power of Holy Spirit into unseen dimensions where He is leading you? If you are waiting for some great Kingdom call to rise up and declare all that you have believed and held to be true, you may have already missed the timing. The Charlie Kirk movement is just that...it is a movement. Yes, Holy Spirit is doing a mighty work in and through the proclaimed message of Charlie Kirk of his LORD JESUS CHRIST. 

Many are the voices speaking forth quietly telling us that there are multiple forces at work in the world today that will affect the life of the believer in Jesus Christ. It isn't just one movement..it isn't just this temporary elevation of the courage to speak forth of one's faith and trust in Jesus Christ up and against the long time negativity of the press and media. We are amiss if we think the temporary swing to text and  write articles supporting the work of Charlie is anything but a brief break in what will be even a greater opposition to anything moral much less holy or about Jesus Christ in particular. This is something unique for this hour. And what comes behind it?? Lets not be caught unaware and do as one of the Kings of Israel did after the Lord had done a mighty healing in his life...he opened all the riches and resources of his kingdom to the eyes of those who came to see him after his healing. The cost, he lost control of the kingdom and those exposed riches were taken by the enemy. Guard everything of value in your lives with great wisdom least like that King you open your world to the eyes of the evil forces of this world both spiritually and physically. In this hour, as we are beginning to be openly aware, there is little separation between the evil world spiritually and the evil world as it affects our world physically. Maybe there never has been but we are seeing the manifestation of it more and more as some evil deeds get manifest over the media.  Thousands daily suffer the results of evil hearts and minds and are left alone in what seems darkness...often ignored by those who supposedly have the Light of the Lord to see the reality of what is going on in the earth.

 Yet another death in my circle of friends...this time my childhood friend Diane's..her husband of 50 plus years who had his last struggle with lung cancer yesterday. Though they live 10 hours away and I don't see them even once a year..though did visit them in February this year...the sense of loss is there. It will change my relationship with Diane...and already has...but what and how ??? That's part of grief...and one of the places I sense the Lord is speaking to my heart to trust HIM for what tomorrow...today holds.

The big deal?? Diane and I have emailed each other every day for many years...sometimes with a text  on something super current....Yep, one of the things the LORD has been speaking to my heart about. How many times during the day I "talked with Diane" and went over the days' activitiy that I would share with her that night. More than once I was remeinded  HE would like me to talk to Him about that.

Father, this is what I'm doing as I write here today...pouring my heart out to you..as the unexpected tears try and escape from my eyes!  I came in from the garden and left the many chores undone to sit down and 
rest". I found myself shaking, and yet my blood pressure is within normal range. 

Is this grief? I posted this morning that Niel's death in Idaho yesterday was the 3rd death in my circle fo friends in 14 or so days.  Jerry was #2 and I got that notice at 8am two weeks ago from Cheri. I did the officiating at their wedding many years ago and was one of the first to do things with Cheri when she arrived from the Phillippines. Our husbands had breakfast together almost every morning for over 10 years and there were various times the four of us gathered together, sometimes with another couple or family friends. Cheri was a part of the three some of us wives of the breakfast crew and once a month we shared together about what was going on and the past 2 years it has been about Jerry's ongoing battle with Parkinsons.  Like Niel who was on Oxygen two years ago when my husband Gene was at the end of his battle with lung cancer..Jerry was already seriously affected by Parkinson's and struggled to talk though he remained a friend and he and Cheri were the last ones to visit Gene and hear his last word  What time is it? as he raised his hand questioning.  

Now all three  no longer are on the earth....leaving yet more empty holes in the month of September.

The other death this month has brought more emotional involvement than I ever expected: the death of my late sister's husband Les.  Les and Jean chose in 2009..16 years ago to separate themselves from relationship with me and they never opened the door over those years though I repeatedly knocked and prayed blessings on them, longing for contact with my only sibling.  My sister passed in July of 2024 and I received notice of it  5 months later through a cousin. I had few details of anything of her life the last 16 years but did learn that her husband Les had cancer and was under the care of my niece. No contact. Two weeks ago, on a Friday I received a note again from my cousin telling me he had receied information from my niece that her dad, my brother in law had passed away that day. There was little information given to my cousin though we did talk on the phone and shared the few tidbits that my cousin had gleaned from various sources. 

Since in 2010 I had contacted my niece and asked if she would be interested in maintaining contact since she was my only blood relative left. Her brother had tragically passed away years before. Her answer was NO, there was nothing to gain and it wasn't worth risking her mom's ire.  Yes, that hurt and was a shut door that I did respect even after hearing my sister had passed and now my brother in law.

I knew my niece had been on a spiritual journey and many changes had taken place in her life. It was time that I could find her blog and see just what had been going on in her life. And then the text came from Kristine,  my niece, telling me, in case I didn't know, that her dad had passed away and she included her phone number if I was interested in contacting her.  Later  I text her and learned she was away visiting her grand children and it was agreed she'd contact me when she returned home.  Over a week later, that text came in inviting me to call her. How I'd prayed and trusted that it would be in HIS plan and HIS time when I was ready...and learning to trust HIm about what to talk about, though I had that conversation multiple times in my head!!

3:30 came and the phone call was made and  what joy and thanksgiving came with it!! There was a connection, there was forgiveness, there was mutual sharing of hurt and pain that came from the rejection that affected most anyone that had been around my sister. I was allowed to see how much my brother in law suffered at my sister's hand...way beyond anything I had seen over the years when they had visited, but yet understood because of things I saw and heard my sister do to both her husband, her parents and to me her sister.  Little did I know the suffering my niece had  gone through at my sister's hand...I began to understand what a blessing it was that they had completely broken contact with me for 16 years...I was spared 16 years of what was ongoing chaos and hurt and pain that was inflicted on people in relationship to my sister.

And I would have not known this had my brother in law not died in the care of my niece. He would not permit her to let me know when my sister died, so deep were the lies that he had bought into about my sister and I and our parents, as well as the lies that he was going to face that he had bought about the treatement of his own daughter and grandchildren.  But now...it is understood...and what I have learned about those years, helped heal the absence of her presence in my life, seeing through my niece, how dangerous and painful any contact with her would have continued to be.

Through it all...I've learned to trust in Jesus, I learned to trust in GOD!! Had I not been afficted I would not have known how much I needed Him, and how deep was my self-sufficiency and dependence on other people other than my loving Father!!!

So as I write today, Im not shaking as much as I was when I started...my heart is somewhat comforted, as it tends to be more aware of the empty places left behind these people's absence...and now my head is beginning to understand the heart ache and is open to the comfort of Holy Spirit flowing over my inner man with the comfort only a Father can give...and the love I never knew from my human father and which I reaslize in so many ways, my only sister also never knew that kind of love and acceptance from our father....nor was she ever open to Heavenly Father's prescious love but seemed to fight it and spew anger and rejection upon anyone who had any semblence of Father's love and care for her.  Little by little I am coming to understand...helps me understand some of my own journey.

The past two years since Gene passed, EVERYTHING in my life has changed...the lay of the land, the property had more than 20 broken down, rusting car bodies atter his death and every building on the property was filled with parts of cars and engines and other items that took most of 4 months and the help of some god given men to help clean up. My dear dog Nala who had previously been my daughter's dog and we got Nala when they moved to Germany...Nala passed away in August of 2024. And shortly after she passed, I ended up with a spiral break of my right femur and the tip of the previous hip implant that required major surgery, hosptial stay followed by rehab and then home. Shortly after I got home and still unable to be outside, drive, etc. my dear friend Charmaine who had lived in her RV next door to us for 5 years, got sick, went to the hosptial with Covid and 11 days later was placed in an adult family home with all knowing due to her dementia she could never live alone again. So within 4 days of being home from hosptial, I was now totally alone on this property. One daughter 45 miles away and another across the united states, and one locally, working, dealing with her addiction and a nasty divorce...

Changes.....it is almost a year since I found myself all alone on this 8+ acre piece of property. I just had my year's follow up appointment from my broken leg/hip surgery and I am doing well with no major issue from that surgery, though the leg  still is healing and my walk will never be the same. I wear an "alert button" which just this morning was activated and while I was able totell the "base" that I was OK...somehow that person failed to cancel the alert and the first aid unit showed up....I had been vacuuming and didn't hear my phone so there were numerous calls from the 3 daughters who also had gotten the alert...

I have a new dog...her name is Missy, a one year old black lab with pittie mix, with beautifu black shiny boday and pure white feet...who is still much of a puppy. Life changes...and honestly time will tell whether getting another dog , a 1 year old, was wise or the stupidest thing I did at almost 80 years old. She is a good dog..but still a puppy and learning what she can eat off the counters and not get caught...and how far she can go in the fields and still find her way back. 

So....yes, I am grieving....and I am experiencing the comfort also of my Father's great love and care for me as I review all He's done and how he's been with me these last couple of years especially. It's just not what He's done for me...but as I sit here, I realize there are some major changes IN ME....I'll know more about them in the days ahead....

Through the death of my sister and her husband, and new contact with my niece, I have been confronted afresh of how much of my life was spent trying to please my sister, who was 4+ years older than I.

That is another story some of which I have written about. But since Les' death, for some reason I've been especially seeing how I've looked to my friends and acquaintes in various ways to fill that gap of acceptabnce I never had from my sister, and to some degree my parents, but especially my father. My mother lived with me the last 6 months of her life and those were 6 mos of great healing of the little girl that her mother never understood and who didn't see her as the person so VERY different from her sister. Those 6 mos especially my mom saw ME...and she LIKED me, and liked being in my home, and liked the way she was treated and knew she was loved.  My sister visited for a week and was able to care for my mother during the days while my daytime caregiver got her teeth pulled. So mother had my sister from 8am til 8pm when I got home from work 4 days a week.  I knew that week was IN GOD"S PLAN, as it "just happened" that my sister's coming to visit cooicided with the caregiver's need to get her teeth done....GOD"S plan...and it was with that inner peace that the week passed without what I thought was minimal conflict. I came home and my sister retired to her room...and I tended to mother's bedtime and needs throughout the night...as she would need help to use the commode beside her bed.

I was so thankful that the time went well....one major clash over my sister  needlessly permanently damaging my mothers dentures which left my mother unable to wear them! But there was little other problems for which I was so grateful...............little did I know what would come out of this....

My husband Gene was the one to take my sister Jean to the Portland airport at 1pm that day. After they were gone, my mother sat down in the big leather chair and with a sense of great relief, said " I never thought 1pm would come!"  My mother had finally seen the difference betweenn her two daughters and the difference in who we were and how we treated people. When mom was with my sister, she was treated as if she had no mind of her own and she was under the control of my sister. It had always been that way, I had noticed. And family confirmed that when my talkative mom visit at my sisters as she did for a couple weeks every year or so, she had little to say to anyone, even her grandkids who didn't get the opportunity to know her, becauses MY MOM never talked to them.   That was so unlike my mom, as I knew her who clearly had a mind of her own and functioned on her own...except around my sister...and there, like my brother in law, she somehow became silent out of fear. 

I was never like my mother or my  brother in law.  I was ALWAYS in trouble. There was NO pleasing my sister, and there was no doing anything wrong either...one didn't have to "do something" to incur her wrath or the blame which she'd attribute to me as she whined to our parents...often in the presece of guests who always believed my sister...

 I was in my mid 30s before I began to understand that I was " foolishly trying to please my sister." My husband at the time Chuck, whose attitude with my sister was F#$%^ it....and while I never used that expression, I learned slowly to stand my ground about what was important to me...and the result...the upset was on her...she couldn't handle that she wasn't in control of me and went out of control herself and, to the observation of people watching...no longer could I be the blame..because her choices didn't upset me as it always had in the past. I didn't change my course because of her potential upset.

One time  she came up from California  to do my mother's 90th birthday party which was to be celebrated at the local church where she attended.  She made it clear, SHE WAS IN CHAraGE,, she would bring with her everything that was needed.....and she ordered the cake and took care of the arrangements. On Friday prior to the event on Saturday, I had had lunch with my dear friend Joyce and she loved my mom. And wanted to do something....flowers....could she get flowers.  Jean had ordered flowers I believe for the cake table....and that was it. My friend Joyce realized no flowers had been planned for the many round tables and went around town and picked up small plants of chrystantemums and other fall colored flowers and first thing Saturday morning went down to the church and put them on the tables. They looked beautiful and welcoming and did not take away from the cake table which had it's own colors.  My sister was visibly upset the whole day...so visibly upset that the relatives that came from out of town, asked what was the matter with her...and was well aware that she had also distanced herself from me.   Another time my husband Gene asked that there be coffee available for him and anyone else that wanted coffee in the kitchen at a family gathering my sister was "in charge of". She exploded when she found out my mom had gotten the Mr Coffee going in the kitchen....

By this point...I had gained enough sense of my separateness from Jean that these things while not pleasant didn't shake me to the core...they had become increasingly about her..and others saw this. In those days, my mother was still terribly upset when Jean got upset...mom loved my sister and the anger and hurt cut my mom deeply but she wasn't yet able to see how that had played out over the years.

One of the last things my mother said while at my house the last months of her life, was  Meri, we didn't prepare your sister for your birth".....she had begun to understand what had gone "wrong" so to speak with my sister. But that is another story...

Meri  September 20, 2025

 December 26, 2022  Through a glass darkly

As we get close to beginning another year, I wonder whether or not most of us who call ourselves believers in Christ Jesus as Lord have been hearing or seeing what the Lord is doing or if we have had our eyes in the mumble jumble of what our fellow believers and prognosticators have been writing about concerning the circumstances of these days?

As I look through the looking glass darkly I see some things that look familiar to what I read in the scriptures...and yet I wonder why I am seeing these things and people whose insights I have valued over the years see very different things?

Strangely it is about Babylon that I see: Is it strange that there's a new movie out called Babylon?

Genesis 11: 4  “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Dan: 4:29 Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, 30 he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

So the King lost everything he had access to and spent 7 years in the field eating grass like an animal. In his case, he did have his Kingship restored after 7 years as he repented.

Daniel 4: 34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,

for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
    and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
    and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
    and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
    or say to him, “What have you done?”

36 At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.

I had a Christmas card that came from a dear friend and she clings to the hope that a day when the USA saw "better days" might be restored.

Over and over I continue to read from people I once trusted to see and hear what the Lord God is doing who are looking to seeing this nation become "great again." At the same time others are saying we are a great nation above other nations....and profess to be saviours of our way of life they call democracy.

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Yet, in all these things I have yet to read of the one of the things that I saw   clearly through the cloudy window:...REPENT...and indeed the Lord's works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble."

It took Nebuchadnezzar 7 years to repent.... humbled as an animal eating in the field...yet he was granted another opportunity. Sadly as we in this nation are facing a variety of epidemics, inflation, rising taxes, corruption at the highest levels of government with little accountability, and a level of immorality throughout this nation often even unknown in "heathen" godless nations ...there is little sign of repentance. As I write this, I see even many of those proclaiming belief in the Most High that are not only not dealing with their own immorality, corruption, divisiveness but seem to have no concept of what "repentance" is in face of the Most High God who "does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth."  

Where is the Lord God taking us? Is it towards the one world government spoken of in the scriptures? IF so why are those who profess belief in Jesus Christ as Lord working so hard to "turn things around" as if the army that God has chosen to bring about the end times is subject to the will of man? The LORD God, Yahweh creator of heaven and earth and the very source of Life as it exists anywhere in the universe....is accomplishing HIs plan. It is bringing out a glorious time called the manifestation of the Kingdom of God on the earth...when ALL things are under His feet. But the path He is taking us requires that we let go of all our rights and trust Him? Will we find that we are more willing to yield our rights to an earthy kingdom in order to have some measure of financial security as our currency gets manipulated and our food supplies dwindle, and our peace of mind is interrupted by crimes committed by the millions of people in the world that are not subject to same laws and principles that we have held?

Among those who also see through the glass darkly....we tend to agree that there are very few who are even looking to see what the LORD God is doing as we are more comfortable with our traditional ways of thinking rather than admit we are helpless and hopeless apart from the security of knowing HE IS IN CHARGE..HE IS LORD over all the earth. Who are we to think our comfort will change God's plan for all the earth and heavens to be reconciled in His Son? Do I know what that means? No..only that things as they are will not ever be as they were. They can't be as what we know  and have known, is this plan of man  being worked out on the earth is facilitated by the very enemy of God who is controlled and directed by the Lord himself to accomplish that which will bring forth  the very purpose of God as He brings Peace to the earth IN HIMSELF...as He reigns victorious over what is left of the earth and heavens, and His beloved saints who have  His eternal life.  It will include, scripture tells us, the destruction of most of what we have known in this and past centuries in order for the New Order of  the Kingdom of God to be manifested for all eternity...

Repent and have your sins forgiven that you might be filled with the Life of God.then it is no longer I that liveth but the very life of Christ that dwells in me!

 Relationship

One of the things that I am learning about our Lord and His Ways is that He values relationships.

I had a dream once, and in it I was in a room with my earthly father and there were emails all over the floor.  I was busy going through the emails. It was impressed on me that I was more interested in the emails than my father and it spoke to my heart. For at that time I was moderating a list of about 400 apostalic and prophetic people and honestly I  was more concerned with the list and its emails than my personal relationship and time with the Lord.

This morning as I was waiting upon the Lord with praise and thanksgiving, I was reminded of the desire the Father has for us to have "relationship" with those that are put on our hearts to contact in person. Some years ago I attended a congregation who were interested in my husband attending services. They repeatedly called him and invited him to men's breakfasts on Saturday morning. My husband reacted to a unknown person calling him and inviting him to breakfast with an unknown group of men just as we would expect any responsible person would. He thought it strange and almost laughed it off...that a stranger would invite him to have breakfast at a church with a group of unknown men none of which had ever darkened his "always open door."  And 10 years later none of that congregation have ever made any effort to get personally acquainted with my husband though he's known throughout the community as a gentle wise man. I am no longer associated with that congregation for other reasons.

I don't fault these men or congregations. They are operating on the highest level of knowledge that they know.  I remember my husband and I attending a congregation some time ago and at the door greeting us were the husband and wife who lived just two houses up the road from us. My husband recognized them and indicated so to them. Strangely we weren't really warmly welcomed.. weren't treated as valued neighbors...and never had contact with them again. They never used the opportunity to make friends with us and my efforts to open a line of communication with some fresh muffins had no results.

Any testimony we might have or effort to share Jesus that doesn't ultimately invite an ongoing relationship is not in Truth and Spirit. It may be true and they may speak Truth but there's no spirit which ultimately involves relationship.

This is true not only as it relates to our efforts to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others..but as we have our own relationship with the Lord. It is so important that we have the understanding that He is more interested in relationship than witness/works. The scriptures talk of the power of testimony...about my relationship with the Lord and what He's doing in my life. That isn't about something that happened in some time before today...but it's about the on going relationship and the power it has in my life. That's where the power of testimony rests...who and what the Lord is doing in my relationship to Him in the now and in the past when it is accompanied by on going relationship.

There is an occasional example of God using someone that had nothing to do with the Lord God but was apparently usable...but whose life didn't line up with the Truth of God's Word.  

There are also many times when God uses someone who confesses Christ and is used of Him whose lifestyle stinks, simply...I was one of them...yet the Lord didn't withdraw His gifts from me. But used it to draw me into Himself. He never forsook me and continued to do miraculous things as I struggled in an abusive marriage and lived pretty precariously after I got out of that relationship before I came to understand that I had an identity in Christ Jesus and that I had the opportunity to grow up in Christ. He just didn't want to work  and to live out His live in my daily relationships.

That is what He longs for in His people....to bear the testimony of God's personal work in our lives..not just miracles, though those are powerful, but how He has changed us. That is the basis to relate to others...knowing He longs to have relationship with them and to grow the Life of Christ in them for eternity.

Law, rules, and priorities

Some thoughts this Monday morning June 9,2020.

 

These are some of the most confusing times in the history of the United States when values and rules that the nation was founded upon are being changed, threatened, or ignored.  I admit it is difficult to know how to walk through the circumstances of our lives and maintain the mindsets that we have had regarding previous values and rules and foundations of this society and our lives.

 

I read an article yesterday by Brittany Breese wife of NFL Drew Breese. It got me to reconsidering some of my "values" in light of things going on in this world.  What are my "values" based on and what role do "my values” play in my interactions with my fellow human beings?  

 

Recently a friend of mine shared her take on the now often mandated "face mask" issue. She said she isn't going to wear them and put her decision within the framework of what the scriptures say about eating or not eating foods offered to idols.  

 

Do I agree with her? I am beginning to realize that whether I agree or not, my first responsibility as a believer in Jesus Christ IS NOT to hold up MY standard of values in relationship to hers, but to listen to her and seek to have insight into what she is concerned about and perhaps struggling with.

 

I tend to be one that holds up high standards of right and wrong IN MY OPINION.

And as things begin to crumble around this society, I realize that I have failed to put relationships above standards.

 

This morning I read a post where a top executive in government slammed a person who took a stand to put relationship issues above a previously "personally determined standard" which the executive himself held in high honor.  And Holy Spirit spoke pointedly to my heart that I often do this.

 

My daughter who lives in Seattle where there have been 10 nights of riots/looting/fires following protests called me on the choices of priorities that I chose to speak about. For I had pointed to the riots/looting/fires as consequences of the protests, and she shared that I was missing completely the hurt and pain and frustration of the human beings that were protesting legally. Like Drew Breese who at first said that kneeling at a football game was dishonoring the American flag and then apologized realizing in this day, that honoring the American Flag is not the ultimate priority in life...that he realizes today, that kneeling is a way of communicating to those that are hurting and feeling oppressed that someone is listening. Communication and listening above a highly held standard of the flag’s value.

 

I know well within myself, that my values and standards OFTEN stand between me and hearing and listening and showing personal interest in folks whose values and way of life might be different from my own.

 

A new friend recently told me how her daughter who was a drug addict and lived on the streets and liked her freedom to come and go and do what she wanted finally got through to her. “MOM.... quit telling me to live the kind of life you do. I don't want to have to go to work and be consumed by a job like you do, or live a lifestyle like you do. True, I don't like the consequences of my life style, but I don't want yours. Mom, I don't keep telling you to come try my life style...that yours is wrong. Mom, I just want you to be with me, to hear what I am doing like I like to hear what you are doing even if it isn't what I choose as my life style.”

 

How do we validate a human being who is in a lifestyle that violates our own standards and values?  

 

One of the things that I hear the Lord saying to His Church in these conflicted days, is HUMBLE YOURSELVES.... turn from your wicked ways, praying...THEN I will hear from heaven and bring healing to your land.

 

He doesn't speak to the homeless who are "comfortable" in their life style or the drug addict or alcoholic to change so he can heal this land...but to us who proclaim His Holy Name.... that we are to come to the conscious awareness that we are human just like the people under the bridge, the protestors, the rioters, the criminals in our prisons.

Many of my fellow believers don't even know what it means to be human...and therefore it is impossible for them to be humble. Often we excuse our humanity by saying, I'm just human. I make mistakes.  While that is an aspect of our humanity.... my humanity says, I am flawed, at the core, and there is nothing you do as a human that I am not capable of.

 

Jesus made it clear as he dealt with the difference between the way the Law, which is holy, looks at things and the way God's Love and Life in Christ Jesus addresses things.

Ok, I haven't murdered anyone...I'm ok under the Law...but Jesus said...if you call a person a fool...you are guilty of murder.   Yikes.... if you look on a person with lust and desire, you are guilty of adultery/fornication.  

 

A few days ago I listened to a local pastor talk about his time in the woodshed with the Holy Spirit. And God was dealing with him with his anger...and he shared with his people, the struggle he has in laying down his anger.... which by the way is the result of our "judgment" of a situation that it is not "what it should be."  Ultimately, the problem with anger, which is an emotion that comes from my thinking/mindset about a situation, is that most of us validate our anger based on our assessment of what is right or wrong according to me.  Or maybe it is according to what I think God thinks.

Man's anger does not produce the righteousness of God. God has provided the cross for us to lay our anger down on and allow the power and life of Christ in us to come forth according to HIS MIND, which He paid the price to dwell in us.

 

My friend today was struggling with the issue of whether to go to church services where it's required to wear a face mask along with having to call and indicate what service one will attend in order to have proper social distancing.  She admittedly hadn't heard from the Lord yet.... and to my failure...I admit that I suggested that if she'd lay her "standard" of wearing a mask down at the cross, she might hear from the Lord. So I ended up doing just exactly what I've been talking about.  I didn't identify with her struggle to know how to relate in the midst of a confusing time.... instead I gave an unsolicited suggestion which in itself just “laid out another judgment.”

 

The protests that are going on around the world are awakening many in the Body of Christ to something that has long been deficient in our community and fellowships.

 

How often someone shares something and we reply with a seemingly appropriate "bible verse" or admonition?  Yep, guilty here.  How hard it is to even lay our right scriptures down at the cross...let go of "our rightness" and maybe just hug someone...(in violation of social distancing even, maybe?)  I notice the protestors are so concerned about the injustice they have identified with that social distancing and the fear of getting covid19 is way down on their "value system"...though it appears the utility of wearing face masks is way high because it keeps them from being identified and protection from tear gas!

 

So what am I saying?  Humility/humbleness humbling ourselves before the Almighty God means that we are free to be human and in total need of Him, in total need of His love to even love someone. And more, that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which we personify in laws and in THE Law...kills us. It keeps us from being free to be the weak and frail humans we are that God has chosen to indwell and pour His spirit upon. All law tells us we aren't good enough...and encourages us to keep making an effort to be good and do “right” which ultimately we can never do 100% because I am human.

 

I hear Jesus saying this in the story of the rich young ruler. And some of you may be at odds with me over this understanding of scripture...The young ruler comes to Jesus...but he isn't recognizing him as LORD, Messiah, but...a good man...a good teacher...1st mistake which Jesus immediately addresses...why call me that? No one is good but the Father...and then the young man asks what more he can do to "please God" as he's done all he could in keeping the law. And how does Jesus respond? Jesus responded to him as someone who is looking to the law to save him, to approve him so in that vein, Jesus says, “OK...young ruler...go sell all you own and give it to the poor.” and the young rich man went away sorrowful.

 

Under the law...there is NO END. There will always something else we will have to do to please the Father.... because the law was given to show us our humanity, our inability to please God.  Pleasing God isn't possible except by the Spirit of God working in us.

 

He alone makes us acceptable to God.

 

Jesus died to make all men acceptable to God. Until we recognize our base humanity...and realize the death that reigns in our human flesh, we will have no fellowship with anyone.... because that is the only ground to really recognize our humanity...to be humble and truly relate to other.  It is where and only how I can see my fellow human beings as equals, equally corrupt in heart and therefore FREE OF MY JUDGMENT. Ouch.

 

And the neatest thing is that it is also the place where I AM FREE of my own anger, resentments, and expectations...free to admit them and lay them down rather than carry them as weights and anchors of my soul.  Here I can relate to my fellow humans who are hurting, those who carry weights and have their souls twisted from years of injustice....

 

Does it mean I go out and protest on the streets? I can't even respond to that because that is something each person much assess according to whether or not he's willing to pay the price to do or not to do...just as I must. But can I listen to him if he choses to protest and I don’t? What if he's caught up in rioting or porn or addiction?

Can I relate to him where he is?  Probably not unless I live and move and have my being in Christ Jesus...because He does relate to every human being for whom He died, whom He created to live in Him.... But what if they reject Jesus...then I ask...Father what are you doing and how do I co-labor with you in that person's life?  Will I weep with those that weep even if maybe they week in loud voices of protest?

 

Even writing this from the comfort of my 40 foot Fifth wheel surrounded by flowers and green trees and the quietness of a rural setting...I have to ask once again, Lord how am I relating to You, to your children, to my fellow believers, to those who are angry? It comes down to how do I relate to my husband who is angry? to fellow believers who are angry with the angry protestors? Those who are angry that they are told to wear facemasks and they don't like to be told to do anything, much less wear facemasks that makes it hard to breathe normally?  

 

These are things each of us must work out before and with the Lord Himself and His word....otherwise we just put up another "law" or "rule" by which to insulate our own beings from the reality of our human nature and our total need of Him.

 

Meri Ford

 

Questions about rights and responsibilities

Questions about rights and responsibilities  by Meri Ford

In this time when things are changing by the day, I have way more questions than I have answers as relates to the what and why and when.

One of the questions I have stems from something I remember being taught back in the 70s. If you are focused on your rights you are probably aren't fulfilling your responsibilities.

We live in a country that extended certain "rights" to its population through its Constitution.  In the news and in conversation I  often hear people talking about demanding their rights, defending their rights, and blaming a variety of circumstances and people for the loss of what is believed to be their "rights." And at the top of those "demanding"to exercise their rights in the face of "governmental  declarations" are a lot of those who would call themselves "believers in Jesus Christ" defending their governmental right to freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. And each time I hear these things, I find myself wondering, "Is this matter of "constitutional rights" something foundational to our faith in Jesus Christ, or is it something tied to the "babylonian system of governance?"

I hear folks say who often quote  an old saying...if good men sit back and do nothing.....

or to quote John Stuart Mill (not Edmund Burke) more precisely  Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” So I wonder does that justify some of the "fighting for our rights" in 2020 and in years gone by?

 A question that some  of you will answer yes to and some of us are still wondering about. 

As believers what inalienable rights do we have?  NONE as it represents the "babylonian system of governance" or modern day governments. As believers we have one right that no one can take away and that is to live in Christ Jesus....and whether I live or die physically, my life is hid with Christ. Beyond that, do I have any rights?  I see none in the record of the Word of God or any of our foundational  "theology" but I do have responsibilities and obligations totally independent of what "human government" might impose but based in who Christ is in me.

When Peter and others preached the gospel of Kingdom of God they didn't wait for the approval of ruler authorities nor did they justify their preaching based on some inalienable right. Rather they simply were obeying the Word of God as their personal responsibility before the Lord and were willing to pay the price. They knew the price that each could pay if they were arrested for continuing to preach the good news of Jesus Christ.  

I do question today if having the right to congregational meetings constitute the same foundational "obedience" to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul and Peter and others throughout history often given their lives to doing.  

A local pastor has "renamed" his congregation  Relocation Church....and saw 10 years ago in a vision that they wouldn't be able to meet in the church building in his small town.

So they relocated to an area that allowed cars to drive up and appropriately space and continued what they "normally have" with some alteration as a normal church service out of doors.  My question, "Is this the kind of "change" in congregational life that God is calling for amidst this global Sabbath Rest, just a physical change in location of the congregations so they can continue to worship and gather together as they always have?" It is my question...and I'm not sure of the answer but this seems to be the same thing we have always done in a different dress of maybe a different color and style. I appreciated this  same pastor's sermon that I heard on Facebook and his heart cry was that we seek the Father and his heart and be drawn closer into relationship with him, a message I hear Holy Spirit resounding across the globe. But do we just "put that message of intimacy" into the same basic format of congregational gathering than we've had for years in the USA and maybe the western world? What would Holy Spirit really want of us as He calls us to intimacy with  the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Recently I listened to a Sunday service by another local pastor...who had been my personal pastor 30 years ago who has returned to this area.  I admit that I didn't listen to the whole service because the first 25 minutes was service as usual as if it were 30 years ago. I was disappointed.  The ecclesia is generally considered irrelevant to the majority of Americans and much of the world, often no longer even presenting a "threat" to their self-centered lifestyles or idolatry. And how else could it be when much of our congregational gatherings are centered around the life style of the congregation itself, save maybe 20 min or so of the "preaching"?

Is our fighting for our rights as Americans a godly act, or could it be rebellion in a very disguised role for us who are called Believers in Jesus Christ?

Is the "conservative stand" taken by many evangelical and charismatic churches (or on the other hand liberal stands by other groups of church people )and others more a proclamation of their right to their own moral thinking, than it is a matter of living out a personal intimacy with Christ Jesus?  

Is the "church" in China and in Islamic countries suffering because they don't stand up for their "rights" or because they are living out their personal responsibilities to their Lord and Saviour?  Are the thousands of believers dying in Nigeria and other parts of Africa experiencing the result of their failure to "have rights" or is it the result of them living out their personal relationship in Jesus Christ to the death? Is the "church" and the message of Jesus Christ growing in those countries or is the "church" dying due to their lack of rights...dying like we're seeing happen in the USA and much of the West?

Perhaps you have the answers to some of these questions...I'm not sure that I do.

But hopefully you will seek the Lord and be open to hearing what He is saying about these things as they apply to you.

Meri