See Amid the Winter Snow

My Joy!

 What a delightful birthday weekend!

As usual December 10th brought the usual aching in my heart missing my Grandma.  It would have been her hundred and something birthday.   I chose to watch Anastasia the cartoon version because it contains the delightful Grandmother, granddaughter aching which I was feeling.  

This time the spotlight was on Rasputen for me and not as much on the gifts which was my initial impetus for watching it.  The song about the cursedness was more than I could take in my longing for my grandma.  I could really see the intention of the enemy of our souls convening to destroy a loving family and crush it into the dust.  I went to sleep lamenting to my sweet Savior “ Who shall deliver us from the reality of this intention of the enemy so well expressed in this fiction?”

I woke with the full confidence of my Savior's love at 59 years old.  It is your birthday.  Jesus is faithful.  He is preserving your life and your family.  What a grace to see the foot of the Lord stomp the real devil. Halleluia, what a Savior!

The Taming of the Shrew

"a lady doesn't start a fight but she can surely finish one"

 The Essence

The taming influence of faith

Are you a feral kitty or an alley cat?

The roar of the Woman of God in these days is a roar of anguish that her role and her position and her purpose is attacked at  every juncture. 

We are wrestling against the principalities and powers of ungodliness and antifamily values which tout themselves as the majority in our time, when they clearly are not.  They make us believe that in the name of unity we must condescend to their base and baseless demands for capitulation to their demands.  They hold our children hostages to their demands and in every Presidential election cycle they laugh at the strength that they are able to sway against the godly Christian woman. She questions her every choice for the power of their suggestions.

I lean on the God of the Bible and how He has promised to make Himself strong against the laughing enemies of the Gospel and our health.  Instead of seeking God for solace and help, they laugh at the sickened and taunt their health stratagem.  God come and heal our land and show yourself strong against their tactics of taking our privileges and our freedoms hostage to their demands. 

Jesus Save us.  For the glory of your Strong Name, Jesus Christ! Amen  

To Kiki with Love!

 

In the Year that King Uzziah died…

RBG…

What a wonder of a life, 87 years young and full of fight and grit and determination.  She remains a matriarch of our nation.  Alive and attentive to the realities of the world and the ineptitudes that she inherited.  Jewish women must have had such a huge adoration for her.  Although, I had no conversation with any to hear their affiliation with her and her views.

I am sad that we have gotten so far away from the principles that people stand for and more about what they are and what group they might represent.  My grandmother Ruth was and icon in our family, but her perspectives were shaped by the world she grew up in.  Older women today seem determined to look at younger women as mindless numbers on their rolls of perspective.  Young women aren’t allowed to have conservative views and think about things from the perspective of the world that they live in.

As I imagine the issues of womanhood in 1920 I admire the stamina of the women who carved suffrage out of a stone hearted male dominated culture.  Still they were aware of the reasoning that caused a duplicitous relationship with suffrage versus family rights.  That reality has become all too blurred in the chipping away of unity in the isolation of woman’s rights as a cause.

My father used to place under a microscope the hypocrisy of his dearest married Aunt Glo who would give assent to her husbands leadership in the home while undermining his authority by allowing the children a television.  They kept the marriage together until his untimely death inspite of this horrible insubordination that my father hammered into our minds as anti family feminism. (I am not saying it was that, simply that this was how it was advertised to our minds)  Women weren't allowed to make the rules in those days and that wasn't right either, now was it?

We live in a new world where men don’t have the guts to lay down the law and both partners are free to express their unity and hypocrisy in their own way.  No rules doesn’t mean no hypocrisy.  It means no leadership and no direction most times.  Lets really think about it and lets consider whether or not the old feministic agenda needs to be stroked to allow for unity in the “American Family”.  Is it our turn to put the tv in the attic, when mommy comes home to appease the wrath of the Queen?  Why?

We have our own minds and we can think about a world that is changing and perhaps has need of a level headed middle of the road perspective instead of a tearing down the shackles of yesterday song.”   Think about it!

missing you! Love to my snuggle bunnies

 

Pastor Sam's sermon yesterday shined a great light on the riotous activity of our day, I think!

God's Standards Still Matter 

Pastor Sam's sermon yesterday, please listen!

make notes of your thoughts and send them to me also

We cannot appreciate the idolatry of the first century, in spite of our seeing the deplorable acts of our day.  Acts 15-29

Acts 15:29  

That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

Acts 15:30  

So when they were dismissed, they came to Antioch: and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle:

Acts 15:31  

Which when they had read, they rejoiced for the consolation.

Acts 15:32  

And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.

Acts 15:33  

And after they had tarried there a space, they were let go in peace from the brethren unto the apostles.

unaccepting of gentiles in the church was at issue

broader  issue is the Evangelical determination

the Ecclesiastical Issue 

the Ethical Issue

restrictions that were laid on the gentiles at the counsel

Acts 15:20

3 issues concerning the restrictions

1)common interpretations and rejection of it-

cannot accept-  “the restrictions were   temporary in order to allow for peace and because they were the dominant culture

no permanent or relevant direction for the church in later”  Only for a deference to the Jews…

I don’t think that is the case

why?

1. the prohibition of fornication-  that is not the testimony of the rest of scripture for anyone… could not have been temporary 1 For

1 Corinthians 5:1  

It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

6:13

1 Corinthians 6:18 

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

etc., etc.

2.Sacrificed to Idols was not temporary  eating and etc.

Acts 21:25 

As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.

Eating Blood?  not only a significance of the ceremonial law…

Not acceptable in US  rare steak is not blood 

You can’t buy blood in a grocery store…

God’s covenant was a Covenant of Grace

Noah Covenant

Gen 9:1-17

Genesis 9:1 

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

Genesis 9:2  

And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

Genesis 9:3  

Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

Genesis 9:4 

But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

Genesis 9:5 

And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

Genesis 9:6  

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

Genesis 9:7 

And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

Genesis 9:8  

And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

Genesis 9:9 

And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

Genesis 9:10 

And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

Genesis 9:11  

And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

Genesis 9:1

And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

Genesis 9:13  

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

Genesis 9:14

And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

Genesis 9:15  

And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Genesis 9:16 

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

Genesis 9:17  

And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

Acts 15:28 

For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;

1. the Better understanding of these requirements

all of the gentiles had been exposed to great idolatry and they needed to be instructed very specifically on these things. 

Were the Apostles saying the Gentiles could be saved and continue in their idolatry.  No! Just pointing out the most odious acts that were acceptable in their day had to be required and binding not just then, but now, etc.   (College life example)   Having the talk with your young teenager.  

1. you cannot be a Christian and live any way that you please.
2. Evangelical Obedience to the law is pleasing to God!
3. must not overreact not just an angry torrent against the culture of the day…
4. reacting against error must be measured.
5. be wise like James and the apostles guarding against the attacks of the enemies of the Gospel on our doctrine.  We must be relevant in our balanced and wise and careful presentation of the Gospel
6. There are binding requirements upon Christians today

3 Kingdoms

 Creation

Kingdom of Israel  Temporary 

Kingdom of Christ  Not temporary

Becoming a part of the Church has personal responsibilities attached to it.  Not licentiousness, but a binding acceptance of the moral law upon the conscience and activity of the Christian. 

Root of bitterness is the worship of false Gods is dangerous… Riotousness and chaos is the fruit of idolatry.

Idolatry is the mother sin against which we must be vigilant…

We still must flee idolatry!  

What are you struggling with loving more than God?  Help us Lord to slay our attachments to other gods.  Love God! Seek God!

Help Lord for the sake of Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen

Peace and Safety? Too much talk?

  ….Lord Hear our Hearts, please…

Hear and heart have ear in the middle.  I don’t think it is a coincidence that God refers to his creation of the body as having planted the ear in the body.  No other part of the body is spoken of as being planted, as I have seen.

Do we use our ears enough?  Do we use our hearts to hear God?  Do we expect more listening from God than we are willing to give to him?  God hear our prayer and give us hearts and ears that are both willing to submit to You, above all of the cacophony of the world! for the sake of Christ Jesus in this world.         John Bunyan on Prayer

Life With Mother: On the subject of the Democratic convention and an editorial written masterfully by Maureen Dowd this morning...

 No disrespect intended to Seamus Heaney or the Irish wonders that were penned by the editorialist...

To Be Irish is to know that in the end?  the world doesn’t like us! {implied} is this the motto of unity?

We love you Joe! You are just not the man for the job.  This sudden feeling to mask a deeper problem with rhetoric about a speech impediment is just scary.   We love you and your Irish charm.  We wouldn’t break your heart for anything, but the America that we are in now needs a leader with business savvy and economic and brutal reality and not the limericks and Lyricism of trying to rhyme History with Hope.  Though harmonize, they might, rhyming them is a task for the fairies.  This is not a fairy problem, Joe.  This is a problem for picks and axes to dig us out of this mess.  This is not a rhetorical problem or a political problem; it is a real business and economic and health crisis.  You know something  about such things, but do you have the resolve to do anything but to save your own? Understandable to want to save your own, but unacceptable.  

   When Rome was burning under your watch there was precious little you could do and jobs were trickling out of our country and unemployment skyrocketed and unfortunately we haven't the stomach nor the resources to endure this again if you are elected.  

       You have no plan and hide under the sorry unity that hating Trump affords you.  We Americans {both educated and uneducated} can see through that mask, Joe.  We love you, but you are yesterday’s Democratic Party.  You are not in touch with today’s problems.  A mask doesn’t hide that problem, Joe.

      Its not that we are prejudiced against your Irish Catholic resolve.  It is not that we are afraid of your age.  It is not that we don’t appreciate all of the sacrifices that you have endured for our country.  We need a business and a wise and savvy negotiator in the White House.  America is deteriorating like South Jamaica was and Donald lifted it out of the slums and gave it life and vigor.   America is sick and Donald built the hospitals and Nursing homes that housed our aged and gave us jobs for our youth.  The world needs to see America care about itself, right now, so that it can do the same!  We love you Joe, but we are not voting for you in this election.  You are the past and we love the past, but we need a new future of self care and promise and not limericks and lyrics to encourage us while we sell our future to the highest bidder.

For Still Our Ancient Foe...

 For Still our Ancient Foe…

doth seek to work us woe

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal { NYT.   WJT.  Wash Post, etc, etc,}

And the enemies of our souls are not people, but principalities and powers in high places...

How then, can we cast down the imaginations that have funded and emancipated the Prinipalities and powers that plague us in this generation?  what a question/  How then, can we free ourselves from an identity of Christendom that deems us a Facist few, instead of a reconciling majority, which is what we are.  

We refuse to be deemed the problem here.   we refuse to be  blamed for the Covid and the BLM movement and the chaos in the streets that the antifundamentalist media have labeled us to be.  

They are happy to place the label of Special Needs upon us when we have been and remain the gel that has kept this republic together for its history.  We have compromised and we have discussed our differences all the way to the barn and now that we are over the Lord’s knee in spanking mode, the naughty are blaming the problem on us.

We are redeemed in our souls and not afraid of God’s judgments upon our nation, because we have asked Him to spare us from full annihilation for the sake of the few praying people.  We know we all deserve Hell and that we have been blessed with so much mercy that this sad moment in history where we are experiencing a plague is just a small token of what our sins deserve.  We haven’t been God-pleasing in our personal lives or in our churches.  We have tried to reconcile when we should have been fighting against the powers of division that sent us to our homes.  No other generation has hidden the remedy from the sick minority.  We have.  Prayer and corporate gatherings are the healing balm that our nation needs at such a time.  

It is not our expectation to escape such a time of accountability.  Trusting in the God of the Sciences is what I choose to believe He created science and data and the people who askew these data points for the fear of the weak is not hidden from his sight or the sight of the church.  Still, we would not be those who are blamed for the death in our nation for the sake of saving face.  We have been blessed with other ways to gather and we have gathered.  And we are praying and we will not be devoured by the attacking foe and the imagination of “White Evangelicals” being the problem.  We are not the problem.  we are the reality of healing in His wings White Evangelicals, Black Evangelicals, Black lives that matter and white lives that matter, White churches orthodox and Black orthodoxy, We are the solution and not the problem. The fear mongering media and divisive tactics of the media in the attempt to justify their presence is the problem.  Cover the reality and not your fear base.  

Bless us Lord! In the name of the Christ who is over it all. Amen

Frankly Scarlett, do you care enough to still trouble your house to try to gain the inheritance of Truth for your children?

Boast not thyself  of tomorrow>

Though Our sins be as scarlett??

Wilt thou make us white as snow?  Gone with the wind, Inheriting the wind, How we trouble our house makes the very different.

Strokes, topspin, slice, overheads, serve and volley.  Troubling our house at the pace of the problems and we will create an inheritance or watch it fly away as with the wind!

Grateful for a visit from Aunt Audrey

We haven't had the opportunity to show hospitality much in these tumultuous days of Work and Home and children.  Now, we really have no little children, just adults and a budding adult.  Thank God for the opportunity to show some of the preciousness and receive the precious blessing of having a dear one into our home.
It is a delight to readjust our focus from our own mundane concerns of health and welfare to another who is dear and yet, for whom distance has kept us from having over and sharing loving fellowship with.  We have so much in common with our dear sister and we are grateful for the providence allowing her to come and share with us and we with her.

Pray, dear children,  that our testimony will continue as dear with each other as the distance has allowed us to be.

Aunt Ann and my Mom taught me, cousins are for kissing and cousins are for fighting with!

Aunt Ann and my Mom taught me, cousins are for kissing and cousins are for fighting with!  

I miss you already Aunt Ann.

I miss seeing how to create conflicts and how to rectify conflicts between you and my mommy.  they are at it again, I used to think quietly to myself.  The religious perspective and the human perspective were always at odds in our extended family.  Learning to let the human perspective direct the religious perspective and the religious perspective temper the passions was a lifelong study of mine watching my mommy and her first cousin always lovingly wrestling through the issues of the family and the life that we were enjoying.

People have needs, you always knew.  It was never about you.  It was always about getting the job done.  You truly got the job done.  Absolutely the most efficient woman in my life.  Mu said jump and you were in the air before any of us could hear her touch the last consonant of p.  I loved seeing that as a little child.  I loved watching you care for your children and godchild and nieces and nephews and mother with determine and focus.  You were really one of the best people we have known.  An agitator and militantly caring woman, you were.  You went out of your way to love people with activity, in whatever way you could.  I loved that about you! 

Stop Blaming God for the deterioration of the Earth and our relationships (Thoughts from Thomas L. Friedmans reminders of our generation's Breaking the Earth NYTIMES)

Revelation 7:2  

And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

Revelation 7:17  

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

 

The Earth Our Gift?

God said it was GOOD.

Spending all of it’s resources upon our own lusts, seems to have been our continual race, from the very beginning.

1. Man’s disobedience, a. Eve wanted a promotion to God.  b. Adam wanted to promote her.  c.The demotion of the race to below Satan. d. Jesus ready stands to save us.
2. Now Jesus changes our self centered interests into other centered interests, Namely not destroying the planet, in our tirades like Cain killed his brother.
3. Cain really thought it was the purpose of God for him to get away with that and built a religion around his covering of his sin, while in actuality Abel’s blood was crying out and every martyr’s blood cries to God. In the self serving religious acceptance of murderous and planet killing piety lives to shake his and her impious fist in the face of the merciful blessings of God’s good gift of the earth and the relationships that we have in it.
4. No, Eve didn’t receive her promotion to God status that she intended through eating and disobeying as the Serpent had promised.
5. He proved a liar.
6. Instead of tracing their steps back to the relationship that was lost, we march through the wilderness of self promotion and consumption, instead of repentance and restoration.

God shows us the way back to Himself.  Salvation of our souls and Joy to the world in true piety and commitment to our relationships.  Stop killing your brother by dumping those polutants in the water.  Stop blaming your wife for your lack of leadership in the grand scheme of your physical footprint upon the earth.  These are the ways that we today blow up our parts of the earth.  Lets try taking the part of the serpent and tempting ourselves to promote God to His own right place in authority over us.

“While rocks and hills and plains will also repeat the SOUNDING JOY!”


Lets start eating the fruit of obedience to God and its reminders in the HYMNS.

Faith is the Victory

Encamped along the hills of light,Ye Christian soldiers, rise,And press the battle ere the nightShall veil the glowing skies.Against the foe in vales below,Let all our strength be hurled;Faith is the victory, we know,That overcomes the world.
Refrain:Faith is is the victory!Faith is is the victory!Oh, glorious victory,That overcomes the world.
His banner over us is love,Our sword the Word of God;We tread the road the saints aboveWith shouts of triumph trod.By faith they, like a whirlwind's breath,Swept on o'er ev'ry field;The faith by which they conquered deathIs still our shining shield.
On ev'ry hand the foe we findDrawn up in dread array;Let tents of ease be left behind,And onward to the fray;Salvation's helmet on each head,With truth all girt about,The earth shall tremble 'neath our tread,And echo with our shout.
To him that overcomes the foe,White raiment shall be giv'n;Before the angels he shall knowHis name confessed in heav'n.Then onward from the hills of light,Our hearts with love aflame,We'll vanquish all the hosts of night,In Jesus' conqu'ring name.