Unanswered Questions.

I just turned 60 years old, and I have so many unanswered questions!

I still haven't found out who let the dogs out or where the beef is.

I still don't know how to get to Sesame Street, and in this age of technology, why doesn't Dora just use Google Maps?

Why do all flavors of fruit loops taste exactly the same, or just how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

Why are eggs and light bulbs packaged in a flimsy container, but batteries are secured in plastic that's tough as nails?

Ever buy scissors? You need scissors to cut into the packaging of scissors!

I still don't understand why there is Braille on drive-up ATM's or why "abbreviated" is such a long word.

Why is there a "D" in "fridge" but not in "refrigerator."?

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, yet dishwashing liquid is made with real lemons?

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

And why do you have to "put your two cents in," but it's only a "penny for your thoughts." Where's that extra penny going to anyway?

Why does the Alphabet Song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune, and why did you just try to sing those two previous songs?

And just what is Victoria's secret?

And what would you do for a Klondike bar when you know as soon as you bite into it it's going to fall apart?

Does she or doesn't she what?

Why do you care if I got milk?

And do you really think I am this witty?! I actually got this from a friend, who stole it from her brother's girlfriend's uncle's cousin's baby momma's doctor who lived next door to an old classmate's mailman! Now it is your turn to take it from me. ツ 

You Cannot Save Yourself!

When I was unclean, He sat with me in the low place. Every sin I did was being stored up for the day of judgement.  The day when all things will come to the light. People talk about Karma. No. Reality is much more intense. I didn't realize I was lost. I was just trying to survive.  The world had crushed me and it's what I learned: to crush others so that I wouldn't keep getting crushed. Interesting that I thought that way, doing everything I could in my own power just to breathe and was still unable to under the weight of my own sin.  "If I can just. suppress the pain, if I can make enough wild memories, if I can get enough attention, maybe I can forget the wounds.  Just don't focus on it. I don't like the cards I was dealt; I have to manipulate someone else's cards to build me a better stack." 

Beloved, this is not the way. I was a child of Satan but don't be confused, so are many people who are reading this. I had people I wanted to kill and had people who wanted to kill me. My God picked me up from the bottom of the floor while I was pretending to be on the top level. 

My God did something unthinkable, unfathomable even. He did what I couldn't do. He defeated the flesh.  He laid down His own life so that I could be reconciled to Him. He saw my bowl of wrath, and He poured it out onto Himself 2000 years ago. It's not selfish to ask God to take your burdens from you. We were not created to live a life without God. We were not created to live a life with burdens. We were created to carry the presence of the Lord with us and to bless people with the heart of God. His heart is to heal. To bless. To give mercy. To make all things new. His name is JESUS! 

So do not tell me that I saved myself. Do not tell me that I had the strength to get up. Do not tell me to give myself more credit. None of you will save yourselves. Surrender to the name above every name because He is mighty to save, and His arm is not too short to reach you. 

JESUS SAVED ME FROM: 

The Pain of my Dad's Death, Stripping, Prostitution, Pimps, Homelessness, The Love of Money, Meth, Heroin, Weed, Spice (K2/Katie), Cocaine, Pain Pills, Caffeine, Alcoholism, Psychedelics, Ouija Boards, Rejection, The Pain of being Raped, The Pain of being Molested, Ungratefulness, Depression, Selfishness, Self-Pity, Self-Seeking, Projecting Pain onto Others, Pornography, Murdering, Being Murdered, Nightmares, Anxiety, Neglecting the ones who love me. 

RESULTS OF SURRENDERING TO JESUS: 

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness. Faithfulness, Self-Control.  

Believers, don't forget the main character of your discussions. Non - Believers, don't let the believers stop you from seeking God. We will all stand in a single file line for judgement day. The angels are recording everything you say, think, and do (including your motives and intentions). 

May every soul that reads this be blessed by God, with the authority of Jesus I pray, Amen. 

[Schultz Katelyn]

Proverbs 13:7 ... There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.

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Under God's Wings

Some of the most expressive illustrations of the divine love and care employed in the Bible, are taken from the ways of birds. For example, this beautiful figure of a bird sheltering her young under her wings, runs through all the Scriptures, as a picture of God's sheltering love.  We find it often. 

Boaz welcomed Ruth from her heathen home to the land of Israel, "The Lord recompense your work, and a full reward be given you of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you are come to trust." In one of the Psalms, we find the words, "My soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed." In another Psalm is the prayer, "Hide me under the shadow of your wings, from the wicked that oppress me." In still another Psalm is this word of confidence, "He shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings shall you trust." 

Then, in the New Testament, our Lord gives the picture yet added beauty and sweeter and more sacred meaning, by His wonderful adaptation of it to Himself. Addressing those who had resisted His love, He said, with a great pain at His heart," O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!" 

Thus, the image is a favorite one in the Bible. Here it is expressed in words of great beauty: "How priceless is Your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge under the shadow of Your wings!" While a picture of a bird sheltering her young beneath her wings is before us, let us think of the wings of God and what is beneath them. 

 [J.R. Miller]

Psalm 36:7 ... How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.  ❤

But What is Sin?

My dear Betsy,

Idleness is a very great evil, the door by which a thousand temptations and mischiefs may enter!

Though you yourself have not been a sufferer, I wish for you to cultivate a sympathetic and benevolent spirit a disposition to have compassion on the distresses of others, even though you cannot relieve them. Compassion, next to the grace of God, is the brightest ornament of human nature. When it is genuine, it is one of the best effects and proofs of saving grace. It was the mind of Jesus the Savior and those who love Him, will in a degree resemble Him! A hard-hearted, unfeeling, selfish Christian is a total contradiction.

When you think what multitudes of mankind are suffering by war, famine, sickness, storms, earthquakes, and other calamities let it lead your thoughts to the evil of sin, which brought all these other evils into the world.

But what is sin?

Sin is presuming to do our own will in opposition to the will of God, who is our Creator, Lawgiver and Benefactor. By sin we attempt independence from our Creator, affront the authority of our righteous Lawgiver, and are guilty of base and horrid ingratitude against our greatest and kindest Benefactor!

If you could form a 'little creature' and make it live and if it hated you and opposed you, slighted your kindness, and took pleasure in displeasing you would you not soon be weary of it, and, instead of feeding and taking care of it, be provoked to tread it under your feet? But, oh, the patience of God, though He could destroy rebellious men much more easily than you could kill a loathsome spider, yet He waits to be gracious and has so loved them as to send His own Son to die, that they may live!

Sin has not only filled the world with woe, but it was the cause of all the woe that Jesus endured. He groaned and wept, and sweat blood, and died upon the cross only because we had sinned! May I live to see you duly affected with the evil of sin, and the love of Jesus! There is nothing more that I desire for you!

I am, my dear child,

Your most affectionate father. 

[a letter of John Newton to his 13-year-old adopted daughter, who was away at school.]

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A Fool's Journey.

If Christianity is a fool’s journey, if the Bible is nothing more than a rendering of undocumented writings or exaggerated, or worse, a book of myths, if Christ was not God in the flesh but just a mere man who was deluded, then the millions upon millions of followers who gave their life for what this faith holds was all in vain. 

But those who were martyred for their faith, or who continually face persecution for Christ have found the truth of God, his word, and the hope that is in Christ not based on a disbelieving world, but by the conviction of their soul. If there was no God, then this entire experiment called human existence and its very evolution was a mishap. 

The idea that says earth just happened to be at the right place, positioned at the right plane from the sun and that all of the universe was a mere result by luck is a fool's religion. But we know that all things created by our creator remains as his handiwork, designed to remind man that God still remains, and his seat unchanging. 

Man says a lot of things in an attempt to prove his own existence without God. But it is a fool's path designed by a fool for a fool. I will cling to God. 

[Christopher Gregory]

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Psalm 14:1 ... The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

Philippians 2:16 ... Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. ❤

Okay.

Faith is not about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.

Romans 8:28 ... And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ❤

 

Nature's Church

Did you ever see the mountains that are covered up with snow, or see a sun set in the West with purple afterglow? 

Have you ever seen a newborn calf a-wobbling to its feet, and though it's only minutes old it knows just where to eat? 

You can't climb upon a saddle horse and cross the prairie sod, or see an eagle on the wing and not believe in God. 

A cowboy doesn't worship in a building made of stone, but worships with his Maker out with nature all alone. 

His church is in the great outdoors; the valley, heaven's gate, his favorite hymn's a coyote that is calling to its mate. 

He makes his own communion as a choir of songbirds sing, as he cups his hands and drinks the fresh cold water from a spring. 

With the budding of the springtime and with autumn's goldenrod a cowboy lives with nature and the wonders of his God. 

So, when you hear a meadowlark that's singing from his perch, he's inviting you to worship with him there at Nature's Church. 

 [Yvonne Hollenbeck]

Cowboys 4 Christ

Psalm 29:2 ... Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. ❤

Your Accident.

My dear friend, 

I am very sorry about your accident, but I am thankful that you were not hurt. Such catastrophes, as this may properly be called, have often been attended with dislocated or broken bones, a fractured skull, or instant death, so frail is man! 

Often, when he thinks himself safe, and is dreaming of his own importance, as if he were a necessary part in the complicated movements of Divine Providence, he falls like grass before the scythe! And not by the hands of a giant, or the fangs of a tiger but the smallest trifle is sufficient to destroy him! 

For example, how many loose stones do we see in the road; it seems no great matter where they lie. Yet any one of them, by changing the direction of a wheel is sufficient to confound all the plans of this mighty creature! One stone stumbles him down; he falls with his head upon another in that very moment all his future plans perish! 

But the Lord gave His angels charge over you; therefore, you feel unhurt, and are still alive to praise and serve Him. I see so much of the uncertainty of life, and how little I can either foresee or prevent what the next moment may bring forth that I would be a very great coward afraid not only of riding in a coach, but of walking across a room if I was not in some degree enabled to confide in the Lord's protection! 

I wish for you to think much of the Lord's governing providence. It extends to the minutest concerns. He rules and manages all things; but in so secret a way, that most people think that He does nothing. When, in reality: He does ALL! 

 [John Newton] 

Psalm 119:117 ...  Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually.

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Divine Doors

He has ordained this time from before the foundations of the earth. You are His creative message. Tell your creative story. Fresh pathways, extensions of His life flow through you to awaken hearts. Submission to the grinding of your key unlocks divine doors. 

Only humble trust submits to its process. This is the narrow way. Supernatural overflow doors lie ahead. Create your story and prepare to raise the multitude. Multiplication, He wants to multiply His humble ones. The time for exaltation is here. Carry out your creative purpose. Your journal is the visible root system of His DNA design to you personally. Hear and obey and Supernatural signs will follow. 

[Troi Nelson Cockayne]

Matthew 7:13-14 ... Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Ephesians 2:10 ...  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. ❤

Brand New!!

15 years ago, I lost my family in a bizarre tragedy. I lost my mom, my little brother and my dad, almost lost myself too. If you’ve been my friend since my old Facebook days or my new account, you know I’ve never posted about my family. But today, I made the decision to do so because I have stepped out of the box/bubble and my comfort zone. I believe this story can touch or change or even encourage you to take that first step in whatever you’re going through. When I was 15 yrs. old, one usual morning my dad decided to do something. “Like what?! You may ask” well, he used a 10 KG sledgehammer, killed my mom, my brother and hurt me (not realizing I wasn’t hit hard enough to die) and killed himself. 

I don’t remember seeing anything but, all I remember is waking up in pain and then I go back into a coma for about a week or so. Finally, I woke up not knowing everyone’s dead. And the story goes on... Just imagine the only one to be alive in bed full of blood. My life changed overnight. I was filled with anger, rage, bitterness, and was the most cold-hearted young girl I’ve ever come across. Was bad named all my life for the things I never did; I was only a survivor. But, today, I am living life. I have been restored, completely healed physically from the wounds. I can tell you my story and not be broken, today I am free from my bondages. I have forgiven my dad, and I love him just like I loved him since I knew him as a child. I know my true identity. 

Today, I am capable of understanding anyone’s pain because my pain inside has been healed. Today, I realize the value of all the people in my life because I know the reason. And I am able to overcome my everyday obstacles because I know, I have the power and the strength it takes. And all of this has been possible only because of JESUS. From day 1 to today, he’s never given up on me. He’s always been there, and I only had to say ‘yes’ to Him. He’s no religion or law-based God. Jesus walked on this earth just like you and I, 100% man and He is able to understand. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, how many people you’ve dated, how many tattoos you have or how many piercings you’ve got, don’t listen to religious people. Jesus sees only your heart and He loves you so much, that He’s already forgiven all your sins and keeps no record of wrongs. 

I want you to experience the same closeness with Him and today choose to be free from all that’s dragging you down. The enemy stole my family away, but Jesus has restored many more families into my life This is my testimony, and I am not ashamed to share it. I am nothing without Jesus and today I AM EVERYTHING HE SAYS I AM! Only Jesus can restore what’s broken into BRAND NEW.

[Kavitha Ramaraj]

2 Corinthians 5:17 ... Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

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Growth of Grain

The Lord compares the usual method of growth in grace to the growth of grain, which is perfected by a slow and almost imperceptible progress. The seed is hidden for a time in the soil; and, when it appears, it passes through a succession of changes the blade, the stalk, and lastly the ripe grain. And it is brought forward amidst a variety of weather: the dew, the frost, the wind, the rain, the sun, all concur to advance its maturity, though some of these agents are contrary to each other; and some of them, perhaps, seem to threaten the life of the plant!   Yet, when the season of harvest returns, the grain is found ready for the sickle! 

Just so is God's work of grace in the soul. Its beginnings are small, its growth for the most part slow; and, to our apprehensions, imperceptible and often precarious. But there is this difference in the comparison: frosts and blights, drought or floods, may possibly disappoint the gardener's hopes. But the great Gardener of the soul will not and cannot be disappointed. What He sows shall flourish in defiance of all opposition! And, if at times it seems to wither, He can and He will revive it! 

For the most part, God's people are exercised with sharp trials and temptations; for it is necessary they should learn not only what He can do for them but how little they can do without Him! Therefore, He teaches them not all at once but by degrees, as they are able to bear it. 

[John Newton]

Mark 4:28 ... For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

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