I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!

Here's something I just discovered while watching a PBS special about hummingbirds (while I eat supper and break from study.)

There are 350 different hummingbird species. Each has it's own particular flower that it's "designed" to eat nectar from. According to the commentator, each bird has evolved to have a bill that fits the flower perfectly. There's the "Swordbill" hummingbird, for instance. This little fellow has a bill that is three times the length of his tiny body. It fits inside a trumpet flower.

According to the science behind this lock-&-key theory, the flower has trained the bird to evolve so that it can pollinate the flower. How long does evolution take? Millions of years. That's what scientists say.

If it took millions of years for the bird to evolve in order to fit the flower and the bird is the flower's ONLY pollinator...what did the flower do to pollinate itself before the bird finally evolved? What's the truth behind this hummingbird evolution?

I think they're full of hooey! Each bird was designed, and I'll even go as far as saying, hand reared, by God Almighty Himself. There's no way a process that takes millions of years can keep the flower around and alive while at the same time working on the bird. You know what? I feel stupid even saying it.

Watch the video. Tell me what you think. Let's talk about it.

THE FLAME OR THE EMBER

In reading others blogs about Jesus, church, and faith..I find myself returning to the issue I've had all along. The issue of religion or as I am calling it..a runaway train. It seems to run everything spiritual down that is in it's path.

All of those years I devoted to the church should have been the ties that bind me to the congregation, my family. How does one start out so full of fire and end up yawning their way through their service among the body? Easily...religion. It quenches the spirit and kills the life. It's the bushel basket that isn't supposed to be placed over the flame.

My fire is back but it burns in a different window now. I have simply moved my "candle." God knows my heart and He knows my struggles. He's walked with me right out the door of the church (the building not the faith). There's a difference between being convicted and knowing you're being convicted but suppressing it so you don't have to feel it. I haven't had to suppress it because it never came. God hasn't convicted me (and Christians know it when He does) of not attending Sunday service...not once. I think it's possible that it's part of my journey and He will use this just like He used my time serving in the church.

There's much to be said for the time I was there. Many children came to Jesus because I chose to obey. But just like that road seemed to materialize under my feet, a new path has materialized as well. I have to walk this out or I am not true to myself nor to the Holy Spirit within me.

This is a deep well of my life. I hear the enemy trying to call me back in. How do I know it's him? Because I know that what started out as a beautiful fire became quenched embers the longer I remained. Why would God have me in a place that leads me further and further from the truth? He wouldn't. That leaves one other entity or force pulling me back. The enemy and none other.

Last night, as I was completing my evening bed time rituals I became aware of a sudden rush of freedom. I knew my heart ached for the things of the Kingdom however, I didn't feel that bondage to the rituals that I had once believed were the only keys that fit the lock of that door. I use to follow a stringent routine of rituals. Bible study at 8...prayer at 9....life...prayer....life....Bible....life...prayer...bed. For all of that I felt empty and entirely unfulfilled. I was happy but not complete.

I have since that time put away those rituals and left inspiration up to God. Call me Father. Call me unto thee. I will come. And call me He has. Sometimes He calls me at 5 and sometimes at 7. Sometimes He calls me in the wee hours and sometimes He doesn't call for long periods. But when He speaks to me, I hear His voice because it's not mingled with man's. 

I don't hear the voice of a man telling me "once saved always saved." I hear my Father warning that there will be a great falling away and that, "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." Hebrews 6:4-6.

I assume that anyone who wants to argue that scripture's validity with me would be reading from a translation that uses the comfortable words that people seek out. Just like the church doesn't teach that there's a hell because it's not comfortable for their congregants, they move the words around in the newer translations to form scriptures that don't even resemble the earlier translations. Why take a scripture that is self explanatory such as, "Jesus wept," and change it to say, "Jesus cried." What's the point in that? It says He wept, so let Him weep.


I will end this saying with, I am called of my Father and not of man. I won't be summoned to a building because man says it's the way of the Christian. I know of only one way to be...in Christ. I reiterate what I've said many times before, Jesus never healed one person and said, "now, you get yerself into a good Bible believin church." He said, and I quote, "go thy way." "Thy way" isn't anyone elses except for mine. I will walk with Jesus and if it means walking alone with Him then so be it. If I can't satisfy my need for corporate worship because the church doesn't uphold sound doctrine anymore, then so be it. I'll deal with it when I get home and He will deal with me.

TO THEE BE THE GLORY, OH GOD!!

I'm sorting through all of this. ("This" being the recent events in my life per the last post entitled "Broken"). It's only fair to give God glory, for today He has revealed His presence and allowed me to know that He's with me. I'm coming through. 

A good representation of that would be the one line post I was able to write which is now growing into this new post. 

I had company today...guess who? Guess again! Yep...Jehovah's Witnesses. Ben, himself. Prior posts revealed Ben's first and second visit to me. Today was his third and through this visit I found myself able to smile and serve as hostess to my guests. I felt no dread at having company, despite their having showed up before my beauty regimen :-)

I intend this post to reveal that God has strengthened me to go on. Two tragic hits at once are a lot for the common man. I do not consider my Christian heritage as making me common, however.

As we sat and discussed the few issues brought up, I had no thoughts haunting me. Thoughts of my Ron or my little Ronnie. Only thoughts of my Jesus were floating around my head. I wanted to talk about Isaiah chapter 52 & 53 which reveals that Christ was not a good-looking man. And why would He be? It's too easy to crowd around the beautiful people. Why do people swoon over Brangelia (Brad Pitt and Angelia Jolie)? It's not because they repulse us. Ben and his friend didn't seem to believe what the scriptures say.

"...his visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men." Is. 52:14."...he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him (note the word "shall") there's no beauty that we should desire him." Is. 53:2.

I could go into greater detail on this subject but why? You can see the words for yourself. There's no other way to interpret this. We could attribute all of this particular scripture to the coming events and that He was marred and afflicted after being beaten so badly, however, there's one more verse that I feel sets the tone for this Biblical fact, "He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of the dry ground:" Is. 53:1. Then is verse 2 which states, "He has no form nor comeliness...that we should desire Him." He grew up this way. It was by design. Otherwise it might have been said that people were drawn to Christ because of His outward beauty.

It's important to know the truth. "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32. How is this statement applicable to our lives? Above all else is the knowledge of who Jesus was, and is, and how we DON'T compare to Him in our knowledge. The truth that makes me free is that we are vain creatures and if God was like us, He would have given our Jesus form of comeliness that we should desire Him. Think about that. "...no form nor comeliness that we should desire Him." Look at the truth revealed in that one scripture. That we, mankind, desire that which is beautiful to look upon, and that which isn't, does not hold our attention nor draw us to it. Therefore, Christ must have been endued with the things of the Spirit, because that's what is important in drawing men unto Himself.

How were those of us 2,000 years later supposed to be drawn to a beautiful man? A man we can't see? God already made the way by equipping Christ with the things of the Spirit so we could be drawn to His deity and not some beautiful face, which would have faded with age and time. The age of 33 is old enough to begin showing age and weathering.

One more thing, I would like someone to tell me what they know about the Jehovah's Witnesses. I want to know why they keep coming to the house of someone who obviously isn't lost and is able to demonstrate a knowledge of her Lord and Savior, as well as demonstrating love...the primary thing among us. I have welcomed them always but with so little time to do God's work, why spend precious little of it at the house of the saved and not in the world with the lost? This is confusing to me. 

Something else that I found odd. If only one of them had done this, I might not have thought anything of it, but they both did it. I had a letter sitting on my coffee table bound for the box in the morning. Ben looks at it and says, "that's a thick letter." I said, "That's because it's a printed document and not a handwritten letter on notebook paper." His friend reaches over and picks up my mail and begins turning it over in her hands and bouncing it as if to test the weight. She then passes it to Ben who makes his remarkable comments and then sets it down and they begin discussing postage with me. Then, he starts shifting the books around on my coffee table and digging through them. They aren't magazines, but my personal journals. I found this behavior to be quite odd. Now, I'm not mad or judging but where I come from we don't handle other people's belongings in their homes. Very odd.

I asked Ben what brings him and he said, "we just want to share what we've learned about the Bible with you." That's cool. I can appreciate that. I can appreciate God sending other believers to me at a time in my life when I'm not feeling like myself 100%. It all matters.

I'll end here and say, 'My Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, to thee be the glory for all thou hast done for me, your humble and devoted servant, for truly there is but one set of footprints in the sands of my life.' 

God is applying the salve. The peace is beginning to flow. To Him be the glory.

BROKEN

This is a sad day for me. This is a very sad day. I want to pour this out because I don't wish to hold it tight to my heart where it could burn through to my soul. There are two factors governing my depressive state right now. The recent report of a motorcycle accident that claimed the life of the only man I ever loved came first. But as I  began to mourn Ron, the love of my life, another tragic blow. I must live knowing I won't see my grandchild anymore as she has cut ties and forbidden me from contacting her for a visit. Ron, a man who raised my son in place of his own dad, left a love print on the hearts of myself and my sons and so therefore, my son gave his son the name. Ronnie.

Ron and I met, fell in love, began our lives, lived our lives, and our lives ended together as he was unable to be a husband, father, and a drug free citizen. He made the choice to remain behind with the drugs while my children and I moved forward. But, he tried to quit his habits and came to where we were. Within months he was begging me to let him at least smoke pot. It was our struggle..me fighting him to keep him sober and him resenting me the whole way. Eventually, after another two year battle, we separated and divorced. Within another 2 years, I came home one day to hear his voice on my answering machine and our lives together began all over. However, true to form, he brought with him that which he carried everywhere, his addiction. I left with a heavy heart one last time. I left with nothing bad to say about him. I could only love him. He was a rock that I broke myself upon. When I made the final decision to move on and never look back, it was a decision I made with one thought on my mind...'leave now while you can still love him.' As he faded away from my life, he still kept coming to me..in my dreams. Every week. Week after week. Dream after dream. I studied to understand what it meant. My only answer was that I loved him still and could not stop it from being so. So it was that my love for him remained for the years that passed. I never remarried or ever lived with a man. I saw him last 3 years ago. In my driveway where he had found me...again. He always found me. The last words he spoke to me were, "I love you babes." He came to me in my dream last night but for the first time, I couldn't see him. He's gone.


Can I say all of this with expression? I think not. I don't think my one human heart can hold it and so therefore, I've displaced it somehow and embraced it all at the same time. This is how I will cycle through my emotions and eventually overcome.

I have been blessed with two grandchildren within three months of one another. Beautiful and healthy, blessed and wanted.

Three months ago my son separated from his new wife as well as his new son who stays with his mother. As a form of punishment to my son she has cut all ties with the family. She has told me tonight that I am not to contact her asking to see my beloved grandchild. I have been forbidden and he has been withheld. I'm broken.

This is deeply personal and wholly tragic. I want it noted that I love both of my grandchildren the same and feel no difference between them. However, their parents are not at all the same. One son is distant and one is close. Ronnie's dad is distant. Nonetheless, I've waited the lifetime of each of my children to meet their first born. I waited anxiously for nine months to greet them and welcome them into the world. I wanted desperately for my face to be one of the first they saw. I am considered a proud grandmother.

I was given months to bond with Ronnie. I kept him many nights and cherished every moment. I worked diligently to enrich his environment when he was in my care. I'm the typical grandmother. I drove in the night to take them diapers. I bought special bottles...$11 a piece. That's a lot of money for one baby bottle. But it was special and would help him to eat happily. I just didn't want him to be uncomfortable for even a moment.

He is a beautiful Gerber looking child. Big beautiful round eyes, flawless beautiful skin, chubby and pink. I adore him, I adore them both. But I don't have to miss my Liam. I get to "seeum my Liam" (as I quip at visit time)  nearly every week and my precious child sees to our visits with diligence. Thank you Gage!!

When the two of them (my son and his wife) separated, there was a time span forming. I was very afraid that too much time without a visit and Ronnie would forget me. I set about the task of keeping myself connected to him. I had a tiny inkling that she might take a spiteful route but I wouldn't let myself believe that she would go this far to hurt my son. It's the old benefit of the doubt scenario.

She is a good mother. She's patient and attentive and I never worried about her ability to care for Ronnie. She demonstrated her capabilities and want for his utmost of care. But this is the one area she fails in. What is important for a child is that he is surrounded by as many people that love him as is possible. The more love poured into a child, the more love they will pour out. But she has lost sight of this for her anger and hurt. My son hurt her. I understand. But I can't find the reason or explanation suitable for telling the child's grandmother that she is not to make contact anymore. I wasn't given an explanation or even told in person. It was sent via text. This makes my third week in a row of contacting her to see Ronnie. The last time I saw him was on the day she came to retrieve the items she had stored in my spare bedroom. I could feel something in the air. She hugged me very long before leaving. Something she has never done, in three years. It felt like a "goodbye."

The short end of a long story is that although I made her promise that I would get to see Ronnie no matter what happened between her and my son, she broke the promise. I was given 45 minutes to visit with Ronnie 3 weeks ago when last I saw him, at which time her dad made an excuse of an imaginary (and very convenient) emergency that needed his attention, and that was the end of that. She whisked Ronnie away. The next week, I  contacted her but it was never returned. So, again, this week I make contact to request a visit. Never have I been so humble in asking something of someone that has been so unkind to me. My request was promptly denied and I was told...and I quote, "...don't you ever call or text my phone again."

Only God can see me through this heartache. Only He can help me not to question all of this until I drive myself insane. Only God can bring peace and calm the storm and so therefore, I'll wait upon Him. In the meantime, I'm grateful for this place, this blog. I want to pour this out. I want the world to know that love is a beautiful thing when it's given and received with a pure heart.  They say that when a soul leaves this world, a child is born in it's place. I wonder if it's possible for the child to be born before the soul leaves. In this case 7 months before. I don't truly believe that. I can't be held responsible for anything I might say right now that sounds far-fetched, dreamy, or fantastic. Forgive me.

As I end this saying, I have no other words for it. I'm broken. My hope now rests in the Lord's understanding and compassion. He will repair my heart and I will go on. All for your glory Father!! Let me to testify as to your love and goodness and the healing salve you apply to the hearts of the broken!!