A message from the Macy's Day Parade, that stuck in my soul

Teach us, Dear Lord to number our days…

Live like you just came back from being 10 minutes late for the Judgment.

The only thing worse than being in the judgment on the wrong side, is knowing that all these people followed you into this awful place apart from the mercy and grace…  I knew better than to not trust in Christ, but these simple ones were beguiled and beguiled by their simple minds following me.  My love for them and sympathy for their plight makes my anguish all the more stinging.

The rich man said, please send Lazarus ( the smallest and least of your people)  to tell my brothers, don’t follow me here.  That is the thought of the eldest brother, deceived by his own devices and knowledgable that he has impressed the simple ones to tow the line behind him into the eternal ditch.  That is not just a pothole to be avoided.

Every pothole in NY seems designed to remind you that one day you will be driving down the road and the pothole of hell will rise to meet you, unless you are attached to Christ.

You are late,  The devil taunts, as his design was this all along.  He hates us and wanted us to have and share in the bounty of his deserts.

You should have been here from the first flame, as I was.  You should have known what it was to taste every mournful moment of having lost my first estate of beauty and fame.  I was beautiful, I was most beautiful, but I couldn’t be humbled in my beauty and nothing about torment is beautiful.  Every wicked memory is ugly. Every grievous lick of the flames is hideous and my only comfort is that I am not alone in my anguish, says Satan.  But as a brother and as an elder, I am tormented that my leadership has brought down an entire city into the flames.

And then I awake,  What day is it?  It is December first and Christmas is upon us, not even Christmas day, yet.  I have time to prepare my soul for the merciful advent of the only and true soul changing Savior.  

I am granted a merciful reprieve?  I am granted another moment’s borrowed breath?  Can I use it wisely, this time?  Can I keep my own soul out of that horrible pit and can I lead my brothers alike?

“O Come all ye Faithful!”

It is more truly close to midnight that we want to know.  All of the potholes are coming together to engulf us in the flames of eternity, if we are not attached to life.

Full of faith, not in self.  That would be the choice of the fool.  O come all ye who are trusting and loving a merciful and ever-present help in this earth.  There is no price to be spared to free your soul from the chains of sin.  Link yourself inextricably to Christ and His Church that your soul will have no questions, in that day.  Tell your underlings.  Show them the true and living way.  Help the trust Him also.

If they follow me, they will also be deceived.  It isn’t my help that you need, when you are facing eternity and judgment.  I haven’t paid it all for you.  I haven’t tasted death to deliver you from the eternal anguish.  JESUS alone can and does break the chains of sin.  Hold together with God’s people to build a greater city of guidance into life!

“Joyful and Triumphant!”

Not a single laurel on the head of the victor, but a triumphant part of the victorious bride of Christ who in symphonic combination link together to enjoy the joy and the triumph over the world’s real enemy.  The world’s real enemy is Death, Hell and the Grave.  God has sent a wonderful baby to show us the holy.  We couldn’t even see it without his deliverance and sacrifice to stoop so very low to bring it to us!

The hardest Hymn for me to sing...

Praise to the Lord, the almighty!

How many times have I been in worship and wondered,  what is making these people so happy.  They must have nothing wrong with them.  They must be professional praisers.  I love God and I love praise, but there is some times of my life, when praise is illusive to me.  

Praise to the Lord is a hymn that felt like a dagger of conviction for years as I worked through the grief of my losses in life.  When we lost our infant son and for years after that,  when that hymn came up in the Liturgy I was ready to leave.  I couldn’t cry 10, 15 years after the day and explain it to the people who had looked at me as a spiritual adult.  I am an infant in this portion of my life.  I am thinking too hard about my faith.  Why can’t you just accept God’s providence and stop asking him the questions that plague you so regularly.  Why can’t you just praise him, like your spiritual directors have instructed you.  I did the outward praise and external praise, but when that hymn came up, I couldn’t help but go all to pieces!

The King of Creation…

Almighty, is acceptable to my conscience, but the king of creation?  Catechism question:  God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.  All of creation and there is no thing that happens that wasn’t and isn’t in your control.  I know this in my mind, but when it comes to the things that go against my will, it is normal to recoil from this truth.  Let me tell you had it works in my soul.  I can think in my mind that maybe God missed it, than to think that it was his loving purpose to allow me to suffer through this or that trial.  An unsaved soul could grow to hate a being so powerful, who allows all the things that have happened in history.  I am not talking about all of the things in history, I am talking about the things that he has allowed in my life.  Why? 

It is always delightful to find out that I am not the only person who feels like this.  Many people have asked that question in Scripture, but the hymn writer seemed convinced and fully persuaded to guide us to sing…

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty the king of Creation…

Oh my soul praise Him for He is thy help and salvation?

Commanding my personhood to find a praise in every situation of my life, is the only help in every situation.  You are going to be helped by this exercise, whether you know it or not.  This is going to grow your spiritual sinew.  That is why you ought to praise him.

Not only don’t I like to be told to praise Him, when I am in pain, but I would much rather stay swimming in my sadness than grow from this problem.  I become angry, with the hymn writer and angry with God who allowed me to go through this difficulty and then make it this hymn that we would sing.  That is like not wanting to reach your hand up to the helping hand that is going to pull you out of the water and you are drowning.  That is exactly what it is.  I would rather keep my hands at my side and stand on the bottom of the pool than to raise my hand and reach for the help that is right there.  Some griefs take you to that point.  I can’t get up!

Praise to the Lord, the almighty, the King of Creation, Oh my soul praise him for He is your help and salvation…

He is the only one who can pierce through the crippling effect of unbelief.   Get up!  Get up!  He is the help of your soul! 

All Ye who hear, now to HIs temple draw near, praise him in GLAD ADORATION.

What is glad adoration, when I am grieving?

The candle of the Lord?

Proverbs 20:20

The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.

Praying for the condition of the young pastors that I know! Seek God and don't follow the crowd.

The Bravery and the Impertinence of telling God’s people what to do!

One ought to shudder to think of the judgment upon people who take it upon themselves to speak for God through the scripture.

When God’s people are suffering in various visisitudes and you come to them with platitudes, beware.

God’s people are His own and He carries the rod.  apply the rod sparingly.  Instruction and care are in order.

God’s people mustn’t be thrown around and battered like a rag doll and beware of the authority which is given you in the lives of God’s people.  He is the Lord Sabaoth who comes to judge His people and doesn’t take your ridicule and gossip about the state of their souls lightly.  Do you share it to gain counsel or to ridicule your brethren in private?  Do you give the reigns of a soul that God has given you to another?

God hates the sower of discord! God hates the pride of place and beware that your authority hasn’t taken you into that place where you ridicule and diminish your authority.  Many men fall prey to this malady and I fear they will not know the state of their souls, until eternity carries them before the throne of Grace and Truth.  

Their Angels?

Preparing to meet your baby and the angels that protect him or her.

I can actually remember 33 years ago, not having met the guardian angels who have become dear to me, as I watch them do their jobs so beautifully.  I delivered a baby girl first and those first words to me were better than any Christmas present that I could ever get.  My mommy and daddy came to meet her, but the feeling of her dearness coming close to me at the birth is most precious. 

I nursed too long at the first session and a month of soreness was the result.  I didn’t know how to get her off.  I wasn’t ready for the suction.  Mom said, get her off of there, you are going to be sore!  She was right!  Natural birth was delightful and great.  My attendants were adorable and attentive, but I was eager to get my new dolly home and dote on her.  

We doted and doted and rested at home and there were no interruptions to our parental bliss.  She knew that she was the center of our world and we committed her to the Lord and gave her the reality of our faith by praying with her and guiding as best we could, all these years.

The shield of faith is the best gift to give your children.  Help them see the spiritual dimension of the things that happen, if you can.  Give them a truth that is incontrovertible to hold onto and you will see the angels come and support your feeble attempts.  God is more supportive of parenting than the best parenting expert.  

I do miss my dear prayer partner and mature woman friend and daughter.  She has grown to be a spiritual guide in my life.  More than I could have even asked from God!

Prayers for my sons!

Do we have any heat?

These weakened North Carolina spoiled children find a morning where it is 39 degrees outside going up to 59 or so a frozen tundra.   No, I will not turn on the heat in the house, yet.  This is the first frost to us.

39 is not freezing yet!  32 is freezing outside.  They are men.  But, they are men who were reared in the warm and perfect temperatures of the Carolinas.  It is truly the garden of eden here.  They don’t appreciate the perfection of such temperatures.  Autumn came for a photo opportunity to entertain the children for Halloween.  It will return to summer temperatures before long and in the meantime the natives complain and the women can pull out their carefully preserved mink coats and celebrate the momentary winter that has come.  I have learned or am learning to enjoy the daily routine of seasonal changes that come for a day or a week in stead of the few months of winter that we enjoy in the north land.

Like the lights of broadway, the seasons and the warmth shine every day for these people.  When they go out for a minute, they complain as my son did this morning.  Don’t we have any heat?  NO!  It is 69 degrees in the house and I am not about to turn the heat on for that.  It gives us something to talk about.

Men don’t ordinarily talk about recipes and shopping sprees and so I can’t find much to converse with them about.  I am not into internet games per’se.  So their lives have become somewhat an enigma to me.  Unwittingly!   They are all men and we have music as a commonality and Church.  Other than that, their lives are their own.  I thought I was a buttinsky type of a mother.  But I have awakened to my complete inability to  carry on more than a moderately dynamic conversation with these young men.  

In politics, Bernie carries their minds.  In music and life Kanye has the new curiosity.  In other things they are live and let live types of fellows.  I didn’t think that kind of man could come out of a militant woman as I am.  But they are.  That is life. 

This brisk morning has called me to clean my house and warm my heart to the reality of their lifestyle choices and pray for the invigoration of the Holy Spirit to enliven their lives and give them a sense of purpose and direction.  In Jesus’ Name Amen.