LIFE HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAD OTHER PLANS….

Last week we finished a fantastic 2 days with a couple attending our Kairos
program at Safe Place Ministries. We had the privilege of watching God heal two discouraged and wounded children back to wholeness as they learned and received the Truth of their Identity in Christ. With them, we enjoyed breakfast at one of our favorite spots for an early morning breaking of the fast to start the day. Hugs and tears were very present as we sent them on their way. They left for the drive to the airport, to go on their way beginning their next stage of their calling in ministry.

Had a great rest of the day and about 10:00pm the time to “bed down”, as we call it, I had a pain hit my belly that stopped me in my tracks. To cut the details short, Phil said, “I am going to take you to the ER”. In our town, it is Union General Hospital and BTW its absolutely wonderful, the best in the country in my book!!! So early in the morning I checked in at 4:30am and after getting in a room by about 11:00 I was in the hands of master pain controller with an IV that flowed morphine in my veins. After several X-rays, a CAT scan and Colonoscopy they gave That Monster with Claws a name. I had Ischemic Colitis and Diverticulitis. “OH Great”, I said. Now that begins the next adventure in my Life when I had other plans going on while going on my merry way. Got home four days later after my body started responding to the group of Doctor’s and Nurse’s care and knowledge. It made me go back in my minds eye and think, one day that group of people were kids that grew up and decided to help people get well. They have to be called to such a duty. They task at hand demands a lot to decide what schools to attend, and how to fund it, oh my goodness! Then to make a commitment to give a part of their time and lives to achieve what it takes to be qualified to obtain such an endeavor to be present on March 24 to 27th for Mary Mason to still be able to be present on this earth. My heart goes out to those folk who, I know God put in my path to make it possible to have my fingers still on this keyboard typing away telling you about my last few days.

Also, I am so grateful for a husband who stood by my side day and night. He would not go home, even slept on those “things” called chairs that eventually make a bed that you have to hold on to keep from falling off while you try to sleep. You haven’t slept until you have been on one of those…. trust me!

So I am going to make it. Right now I have gone away alone to some place only about seven of my close secret keepers know about. I am going to get well here for a few days. It is a quite condo with a small river flowing down below my balcony. The sights are wonderful and so relaxing, just what the doctor ordered. I packed my bland foods “you know” the soup, soda crackers, ginger ale, laptop, journal, books and bible and made a slow drive over here and I will take it all in as I get my Life Center back…..

“Look for the Second Right Answer.”

Read this statement and it triggered my thinking to step out of my box of thinking always this is the way it is and it will not change and I am right, so there you go!

Do you always think you are right? Well think again…

Yeah! I have been there and done that. How do we know what is right I think we better take a minute or longer and give this some thought. Keep it simple.

I am finding out in this world today we better know what we believe and believe what we know. Things can come along and take you away as fast as a tidal wave. Phil has said before “If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything”. In this day and time we had better cling to what is The Truth.

Speaking of Truth what is Truth? Where can you get the Truth? You can’t get it from TV, or the Internet. I want to say you can’t get it from people, but that thought breeds non-trust and I believe that is unhealthy when we can’t trust our friends and it will take us down as a Nation. That is what is going on right now.

So here’s the answer… You can always get the Right answer and Trust the One Who is the Same Yesterday, Today and Forever, and His Name is Jesus! When things are falling apart all around you, people have failed you, He is there and He will never leave you.

I’ll never forget when I came into Faith. I was asked right off the bat to take a 3rd grade Sunday School Class. I didn’t know anything about the Bible but I had my SS quarterly that was put in my hand like “here go teach this”!!! I took it, and little did I know and those little children, that their SS teacher was learning it with them. One of the illustrations I was told to teach I haven't forgotten, is a little exercise and here it is. Some nights when I am feeling lonely as I am falling asleep I will do this simple little Truth in Action! Hold one hand up in front of you, take your other hand and point at your fingers and say this five word sentence one word at a time on each one....”Jesus will never leave me” You can go from left to right and back and forth and the middle finger will always be the word “never”. Sometimes when in a crowd, I hold that “never finger” and say “It’s You and me Lord” and THANK YOU FOR NEVER LEAVING ME BECAUSE WE ARE ONE!!!

Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”. ….AND YES WE ARE ONE!!!

GOING THROUGH A TRIAL? …

Why am I feeling like the whole world is? I am feeling this way today and fighting off what feels like a cloud over me that want leave me alone. I think I need a break from the TV news channels, I keep flipping back and forth like I have to know what is happening right NOW!!!. So many people hurting and I can’t fix it! I am a fix it person, and love Accounting and in Accounting you Reconcile Accounts. It’s a coming to a resolve and it gives me a rush. Like well that’s over!!! But these problems that surround me today I can’t fix them…

But today I have my own issues, the world has its own issues and just then a call was ended with a wife that has an issue in her marriage and so she has her issues and on and on it goes, it just hurts!!!

So are you relating? Here is my resolve, in my mind this morning, I had words to a song going on. I am not a person with musical talent so I have to use Goggle and Itunes for my information. I Goggled the words that were in my mind “Jesus My All in All” and I found it. I will put it here for you to see. It calmed me down to a rest in my Soul. My prayer for you is that this will give you rest in your Soul as it did mine...

SIX QUALITIES OF INNER-BEAUTY FOR A WOMAN…

 Beauty Inside

I took a book off the shelf in my study, it is one that adds to my concern. My question is, "what causes people to think negative thoughts about themselves?.. even after they have dealt with their issues and replaced Lies with The Truth. It seems we have the tendency to go back to the bent of our childhood messages. These thoughts most likely, “Shame Based”. 

It grieves me to see someone not experiencing their True Identity in Christ. You say, "what is the problem?"  What hinders living in the fullness of the Truth of who you are in Christ, is because of some log jam in their lives that hinders the River of Living Waters flowing freely in their Soul.   

Our Heavenly Father provides all things we need to live this life as we surrender to Him so we can experience joy and peace.

But....if we allow circumstances to control us they can rob us of our joy. 

In this book, the author describes something very interesting about someone visiting his office.  This is the story of this beautiful woman sitting there sharing her problems....“As she arrived for her first appointment I looked at a beautiful woman that had all a woman could ever want, she could even be a movie star, but when she began telling me her story all that came from her mouth was negative words, lies that she was believing.  These were words like, how bad she was and how ugly she was, that nobody wanted her, even had several divorces in her background, giving her more defeat." What is the answer?

In my last entry, I began sharing some thoughts on how to recover the ground taken from a person and how it robs them of their ability to have peace and joy. 

Pay attention here, this information be a "crime stopper" to prevent those times mentioned above from happening where you are caught unaware!

These are good traits to add to your life as the beautiful woman God created you to be! Take time to take an inventory from time to time, get in the moment and see where you are in the here and now.  

Ask yourself what is going on in my head? What are the words I am saying to myself sometimes called "mind chatter?".  Ask yourself the hard question, "just how do I see myself on the inside where no one goes but me?". 

Have you thought about how much time and money we spend on our outside body to make it pretty?.... and what little time we spend on our inside beauty? 

We take so much time at the beginning of the day to put our makeup on but do we take time to put our "Inner Makeup" on? 

So here are some thoughts to ponder, concerning marks of Inner Beauty....

SIX QUALITIES OF INNER-BEAUTY FOR A WOMAN

1.COURAGE – the inner commitment to pursue a worth-while goal without giving up hope.

2.PERSISTENCE – continuing to pursue a goal until it is achieved, “never give up”

3.GRATEFULNESS – a sincere appreciation for the benefit you have gained from another. Express it by beginning with those closest around you, like saying “thank you”.

4.CALMNESS – an inner peace that allows you to respond quietly to a stressful situation with out fear. Trust God in your care!

5.GENTLENESS – showing tender consideration for the feeling of another. Like you want to be treated.

6. UNSELFISH LOVE – an action directed toward fulfilling another person’s needs.

John 15: 11 -  “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete”

If you have a question or just need some encouragement please leave me a message I would love to hear if this helped you..you know who you are...

DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY!.LIFE IS GOOD...

Reading a good book, one of those I read years ago, but needing to review it again. It’s call “Telling Yourself The Truth” by William Backus & Marie Chapian. It’s like I never had read it, seeing things I had not seen the first time. One of the things that caught my eye was that I could make a choice to be happy. You know what we do? We let those things around us control us and before we know it we are living a “gloom and doom” lifestyle. Well it doesn’t have to be that way!

We make choices everyday that rule our lives. Based on our childhood environment and messages we received about ourselves in the form of a “lie” will rule our present lives. Recognizing these lies and replacing them with the truth will give us a life of freedom to live out the path of health and happiness. This can be done even though things around us are trying to take us in a direction that have a tendency to take us into a state of depression. And, even before we know it. I feel I am speaking to somebody out there. Life is too short to let those things control you. You know, it’s those things you keep rehearsing in your mind? Replace them with the Truth. Remember, “The Truth is What God Says No Matter How I Feel!” What is the Truth you ask? Well, skip on over to my husband’s blog site, it's for the male reader but I bet he want mind us looking in, so take a look at his recent blog post. I know you will take away some "nuggets" of Truth that will help you live today! He’s getting lots of good response, seems he’s hit a hot spot. You’ll find lots of TRUTH Statements to put in practice…go see for yourself!

Visit Phil’s Blog at: http://themasculinesoul.blogspot.com/

STAY HEAVEN MINDED...

My friend Teresa, told me about a book that I had to read. She was raving about it, even had given it to several friends. I ask Phil to buy it for me. In less than five minutes it was there for me to read on the iPad. I started reading it and couldn’t stop. I finished it and thought, “that’s funny the book she told me about did not have a boy in a car wreck”. Somehow we had ordered the wrong book and I read it as being the one my friend told me about. Right away Phil made the correction and the book, the right book, was purchased and ready for me to read. I started in reading the second book and couldn’t put it down either. I told you all that to tell you this… I got a message in reading those two books. The two books I read, the one by mistake, was “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven” and the other one was “Heaven Is For Real”. They both got me Heaven Minded. Wow! What great books you must take time to get them for your library you will not be sorry!!!

It gave me a whole new perspective on Heaven, causing me to become Heaven Minded. We get so caught up in this ole world, even to the point of dreading dying and leaving this place. I look around at all the bad stuff going on and think WHY do I want to hang around this? I believe God had a reason for me reading those two books last week, with the same theme. I learned so much. One thing, I have been going through some things that have had me troubled. I have the tendency to get myself in a fix. Don’t you act like you don’t know what I am talking about, you do it too!! I learn so much from these “schools” of life. Learning and then thinking Wow! I don’t want to go back and take that class over.

Just yesterday morning, I ask Holy Spirit to show me how to get my mind off these things that were controlling my mind and were bothering me. It seems each day my mind was thinking about it, sometimes without realizing it. A verse popped in my mind, right after my request. Now get this picture. Years ago my husband as a young eager Youth Pastor, would have the boys and me to sit around the kitchen table every morning before they went to school and work on memorizing Bible verses. I would think, please give us a break as his eagerness kept us at the grind, studying. Well yesterday, some 40 years later, it paid off. Little did I know, that one of those verses in my memory bank would save my mind from going in a wrong direction, causing me to be moved off the truth. Holy Spirit had something to work with giving me the verse that would apply to my present situation; it was there all the time. This is the verse, Colossians 3:2 “Set your mind on things above and not on things on this earth”. That’s it, I began to think, this has to be the way to live in a “not worried” state. When we think Heaven Minded we allow Him to work things out. It was then I thought, there is no mistake I read those two books on Heaven. They paved the way for God to show me the answer to setting my mind. After I sat thinking out these things, I checked my email and I got another message from God. It was like He wanted to reinforce what He had said before. I love it when this happens; in my mail was the Gateway verse of the day. This verse was so timely, Psalm 73:25-26 “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Hope my story of yesterday’s event helps someone today. I look forward to Heaven one day and in the meantime I will have Heaven here Being Heaven Minded even though things around us are going crazy…we can do it ….He said so….