Tag Archives: life thoughts

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“Grinding the ax” #4 “STRANGLE HOLD”

“Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest thy be discouraged.” Colossians 3:21

Our fathers, the first and foremost man in our formative years. And if you have a good one, that is great and will be a guaranteed blessing over your entire life. But what about the fathers who are warned in the verse above?

This verse is actually almost verbatim in Ephesians 6:4:” And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture (training) and admonition OF the Lord.”  

So we are being told what NOT to do and exactly what we should do. Children who are constantly “ridden” by their parents, who are made to feel whether intentionally or unintentionally that they are never quite good enough, or “perform” well enough to “earn” the love that they should have naturally received from that parent.

I do know this verse specifies fathers, but we know the damage mothers can do is equally as damaging.

And we could pull a truck load of stats on the completely dysfunctional mother/son relationships that are often prominent among serial killers.

So what I want to focus on the relationship of fathers to daughters and the relationships that are formed later in life.

I also want to bring into the mix the fact that often when women have had extremely dominating fathers and whether that consisted of physical abuse alongside the obvious emotional damage that is caused, that seems to put the pattern in place.

But testosterone is a funny thing and soul debilitating dominance lorded over women is not ALWAYS by their fathers. It can come later in life through a boyfriend, husband, or even male friends who can become quite the material for a medieval tale of when black knights begin to suffer from white knight syndrome .

When “friendship” leads to the need to control your life, and demand answers for your every move that is no longer friendship, that IS control. Male dominance has been and is still our toughest battle regardless of what role that male has in our life.

But for some, it is a short path from growing up with a horrid father to marrying an even worse husband.

So how did it start? People taking the word of God and their DISTORTED view of God and applying THEIR carnality to it. Just as God answered it in his word: 

Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel: EVERY MAN DID THAT WHICH WAS RIGHT IN HIS OWN EYES.”

And things have certainly NOT been right and are still NOT right.

But with the revelation of Isaiah 33:22: “For the Lord IS our judge, the Lord IS our lawgiver, the Lord IS our king; HE WILL SAVE US.”

We know things can and must change. Cruelty and wickedness hiding behind the disguise of goodness and righteousness is nothing new.

The devil himself pretending through the serpent to be a friend to Eve, the wicked all through the Bible whispering into the ears of those who would hear, plans of how to destroy another and thereby having them also destroy themselves.

“Spare the rod, spoil the child” taken so far out of context and USED specifically as a Biblical justification for nothing more than truly sadistic people to senselessly beat children.

If you doubt me on that, web search a few cases of children being adopted and even born into supposedly christian families taken away, rescued out of horrendous abuse. People have even written books advocating these UNGODLY practices.

The old Testament ALSO had a law on stoning your son.. IF he were  a drunkard.. how many little kids drink again?

Listen what Jesus told the Pharisees when they were hassling him about the OT marriage laws.

Mark 10:3-5; “And he answered and said,unto them, What did Moses command you? and they said, Moses suffered (PERMITTED) to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 

And Jesus answered and said unto them, (Because) For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.”

Meaning that they WERE given these severe laws because of their own hardness.

But God reveals His thoughts through His word, James 2:13: “For he SHALL have judgment WITHOUT mercy who hath shewed (shown) NO MERCY; and mercy rejoiceth against (TRIUMPHS OVER) judgment.” 

It is like this, just because we are technically allowed to do something DOES NOT mean that is what God desires for us to do it.

Micah 6:8:” He hath shewed thee, O man, ( all people), what IS good; and what doth (does) the Lord require of thee,  but to do justly and LOVE MERCY (loving kindness),and to walk humbly with thy God? 

So if all of this coupled with stories such as when the angel of the Lord put the smack down on Balaam and lined him out for hitting the donkey (Numbers 22:27-33),  doesn’t prove that God want us to ALL be kind toward each other and to also BE treated kindly, I don’t know what more could.

Just as treating children harshly came from the thoughts of people doing what they wanted.

We also got pulled into the “submission” trap. The Bible does truly say, “wives submit unto your own husbands” but again that is something that has been taken and RAN wild with, as if we were some sort of inferior creation that God placed here for men.

Oh I don’t think so.

Submission means to RESPECT your husband, to care about his feelings and not treat him like dirt, don’t make fun of him, and emotionally emasculate him by being that “brawling” woman spoken of in Proverbs.

God’s intentions for this was that the husband SHOULD be exactly what His word said for him to be.

And in this a husband was to be “submitted” to, as in a place of safety and a place of trust, such as that verse goes on to say “as unto the Lord”.

And I would love to hear the excuses that so many are going to try to give the Lord as to why they betrayed this TRUST that he had given them with their wives and children, and it’s not going to be a pretty picture!

So it DOES NOT mean we are subservient, or a lesser in God’s eyes.

It means that we SHOULD have that protective, nurturing, place if we ever need and at times we all do.

We covered His word in the last post of how He EXPECTS His daughters to be treated and seeing that even in a nation where women have many rights and “hold our own” we can all attest to our numbers of domestic violence, for all the strides we have made, in this area, we have gone backward!

We ARE more free. We HAVE more resources. We HAVE better laws and protection. So what went wrong? Why do we have these statistics that say we are NOT free by any stretch of imagination?

We are still trapped somewhere in our psyches by the lies of the past and the misogynistic teachings of generations before and we want to HIDE that pain and we are giving over to absolutely FALSE sense of shame by not speaking out.

That is what the enemy WANTS and just as he lied to Eve, he is lying to so many women about their past and keeping them in a “strangle hold” that prevents them from moving FORWARD.

Merriam-Webster definition two of the term “STRANGLE HOLD” is this: “A FORCE OR INFLUENCE THAT CHOKES OR SUPPRESSES FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT OR EXPRESSION.”  

If we have that past or are presently living with dominance, harshness, physical, or emotional abuse that is exactly what is happening to us.

The reason the devil has perfected it is because if you have had these experiences with men, especially fathers or husbands, HOW on earth can you “submit” to a being who is male?

When women are brainwashed into BELIEVING that they are subservient and God hates them, why would they seek Him?

The devil bagged and tagged on this one and we have to stop him!

We stop him by NOT taking anyone’s word for who we are or who God created us to be. Study God’s word and discover for yourself!

And when you reach the verses stating that “women are to be silent” and  “i suffer not a woman to teach…” STUDY the background with a good dictionary/history Bible and you will find that Paul was talking to a specific group of people AT THAT TIME. Because a group of women were “gunning” for him and trying to bring in false teachings and for that PERIOD IN TIME, he forbade them to speak so he could PROTECT the Gospel.

Need a little more reassurance, dig this, Galatians 3:23,28: “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith that should afterwards be revealed.

Wherefore  the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

But after THAT faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For YE ALL ARE THE CHILDREN OF GOD by faith in Jesus Christ. 

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.  There is NEITHER Jew nor Greek,  there is NEITHER bond nor free, THERE IS NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE; FOR YE ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST.”

That is a good verse to put to anyone who wants to argue Paul’s teachings with you…. he wrote that. He wrote the verses used to silence women and he wrote the verse that proved otherwise,  all true, but taken out of context by those who WANT to twist those verses to justify their own prejudices.

It’s time to separate God from the men who claim to represent him! If you are dealing with these issues or dealing with the past issues, PLEASE talk to Him, talk to Him just as if he were in the room sitting there.

I promise He does hear and tell Him how you feel, TRUTHFULLY how you feel, if you end up in tears and “I HATE…” starts coming out of your mouth, LET IT COME because the only way we recover is through submitting that to God and HE KNOWS how we feel and when you have been hurt and are trying to work past it.

God is not going to hold that against you, it is normal to feel that way and once you let it go, you will NO LONGER feel that.

But you have to get it out, ALL of it, at His feet, Hebrews 4:15: “For we have NOT an high priest which cannot be touched WITH THE FEELINGS OF OUR INFIRMITIES…” 

Which means Jesus suffered through all the things we do and HE DOES UNDERSTAND any possible thing you could tell Him and he understands with love, compassion, and gentleness toward you and He wants to take it away and give you peace and be those protective arms that hold you through your tears.

But first we must decide that we are slaves no more and no more will we live in the devil’s strangle hold.

There is NO shame in having been a victim and there is courage in admitting that you are a survivor. There is NO shame in needing out NOW and fear is perfectly normal when fighting for your freedom.

We just have to decide which we are WILLING to be. Think about these verses: Isaiah 53:4-6,11: ” Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither shall thou be confounded (disgraced); for thou shalt not be put to shame; for thou SHALT FORGET the shame of thy youth, and SHALT NOT REMEMBER the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 

For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. 

For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused (suffered rejection) saith thy God.  

O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, (tormented and battered by ‘storm”)  and NOT comforted. behold, I WILL lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy FOUNDATIONS with sapphires.”

He knows, and He alone can give us that comfort that we have not been given, He alone see the pain of every season we can go through.

And He alone can lay for us that beautiful foundation, built upon Him and His TRUTH. Trust Him, know Him and most of all, let Him know you!

Related posts: “Grinding the ax” 1 “acknowledgement”

“Grinding the ax” 2… “Real Love?”

“Grinding the ax” #3 “Anger Danger”

*Authors note* This series originally posted on “Alabaster Breaking”, my sister site, that no longer exists. I found it very difficult to maintain both sites and just transferred those most to this, my main site. Thank you

Εξυπνιζω NBJ 2017

Revisited post: 06/15/2019

 

 

by

Finding Paris

“The wilderness and the solitary (desert, lonely, desolate) place shall be glad for them, and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert SHALL rejoice and BLOSSOM AS THE ROSE.” Isaiah 35:1

Finding Paris, strange I know but trust me this is not going to be a world travel post but hopefully a travel to the inner space of ourselves and all those emotions and hopes, and dreams that old man time tends to run roughshod over and with the passage of time we forget that we even had those dreams.

The notion of “romantic” Paris is probably as old as dirt but the mention of the name usually brings to mind, roses, beauty, the Eiffel tower, whose reach toward the sky can be quite a reflection of reaching higher and the sheer romance of all it all will stir the feminine heart in a way unlike any other place on earth.

When as little girls do we first have those feelings that we are DIFFERENT, is in when we sneak into the perfumes, jewelry, and all the “womanly” treasures often found on the dressers of our mothers?

And for me there was nothing quite like the beautiful stationery that my big sister used when writing mushy love letters to her boyfriend who was in the army.

I’d watch her put the gold seal on the envelope and could not wait until I was big enough to have fancy gold seals and write mushy love letters!

And there was nothing quite like sitting playing with my doll watching her and Mom try new lipsticks and hairdo’s together because I SO was going to wear make up and do my hair just like them one day.

And I know you have your memories of when all things feminine, and beautiful stirred in you.

No matter what kind of a childhood you have had, even if it was not influenced by your own mother, there was still a lady, a grandmother, someone that you looked up as a what being female was all about.

There is always still some thread in time that influenced you and stirred thoughts in your heart and your soul that led to the journey of “finding Paris”, that beautiful place of womanhood that we are all eventually led to.

With me I really had to hold on, after my sister married and my mom started worked the majority of my time was spent with my brothers and that could be a whole other post series!

Hard to stay focused on future femininity with daily wrestling, name calling, and “gas” contests going on constantly between them, but thank goodness for afternoon television visits with Ginger Grant 😉 

So WHAT were your hopes, dreams, and destination as you planned as a child? Bear them in mind.

Usually, we do find “Paris”, when we are around fifteen or sixteen, we blossom, discover our own style, we grow inside and become more self-aware, and often more assertive in being allowed who we want to be.

There is a freedom in knowing who we are as women but life changes so fast, especially when we are young.

As as the clock starts to tick the newness wearing off, things never quite measuring up to what our expectations had been, and real life sets in.

Soon the moon over the tower loses luster and doesn’t shine quite so brightly and the captivating scents of jasmine and lilac fade, and petals start to fall from those beautiful roses.

Life does that, bad relationships do that, like countless women who married young, married FOREVER, expecting the road ahead to be filled with happiness, family and Prince Charming only to find that Prince Charming was in reality, the Prince of Persia, (a Biblical reference to Lucifer) that lied, cheated, and battered them and always managed to convince them that they were to blame.

And choosing to leave, others have been faced with being single mothers, taking on the role of both parents, doing the back breaking work of often working two jobs to provide and the double duty task of feeding, clothing, laundry, housework, not one moment for themselves or to worry about what they may need or even want because their children come first.

Others, for a multitude of reasonings, become entangled in bad lifestyle choices and professions that leave you in place alright, but it certainly isn’t paris.

And those who have had good lives but have suffered loss of family, friends, and worse of their children, have actually lost parts of themselves and have a hard time trying to move forward because their hearts long for the happy days of the past, the days when the still had those who have gone on.

The dreams of long ago have but vanished and just making it through the day, week, or month becomes the focus.

No joy, no hope, and no more believing for a “magical” age or time when things will change because as we become jaded, we lose hope, we lose faith, and we lose the ability to see past circumstances to see that “paris” is still really there, it still exists, we just have to find our way back to it and we have to find a way to rekindle the desire to even want to go there.

Last time we talked about aging and the fact that TIME is NOTHING to God, AGE is nothing to God.

He has ALL power in heaven and earth, and time bends to his will.

The scripture above so perfectly reflects what goes on in so many of us, the wilderness, the places we find ourselves in but can’t find our way out.

The lonely deserts, lonely, barren times in life when it seems that nothing you have planted will ever grow and all your best efforts are met with scorching thirst.

But it is in journeying to this place that you will find refreshment, you will find joy, and your hard, dry places will blossom with a beauty you have never known, God created us to have all those wonderful feelings and He wants you to feel loved, beautiful, and precious, and priceless in Him and only He can renew, restore, and rejuvenate all the areas inside and out in each of us that need refreshed.

That really is what it all about, you are still you, you are still the same person you were when He created you, NOTHING can ever change your core being. If you find yourself in a desert you need to stop and take stock, don’t look at the desert, don’t beat yourself up or question how you ended up there.

Ecclesiastes 7:10: “Say NOT thou, What IS THE CAUSE that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.”

Which means that we are not to question that the past was better than our present and in doing so we are not asking the right question.

REMEMBER where you were going, what you wanted to accomplish, REVIVE your hopes, REMEMBER your dreams and ask God to show you what He wants you to see in that place.

It’s like the alabaster breaking, which will we soon get to, we have to want change, we have to be to the point that it is all or nothing and in that place your rose will again bloom and it will bloom abundantly and you will be made completely new.

Jesus NEVER touched or touches a life without that life being made COMPLETELY new, new thoughts, new joy, new peace, and a renewed hope that THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING and your life is a book not yet written. 

Of course, He knows the plans, but for us it is ALL BLANK PAGES AND A CLEAN SLATE and with that you can dream again, you can hope again, and you can feel beautiful, feminine, and BE exactly WHO HE CREATED YOU TO BE!

Don’t be so sure life is “over” when it has even yet begun!

So go, go find Paris! If you thought the first time was good, the second time is going to blow your mind! 

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33

Have A Blessed Week! Εξυπιζω NBJ 2017

 

 

by

“Grinding the ax” #4 “STRANGLE HOLD”

“Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest thy be discouraged.” Colossians 3:21

Our fathers, the first and foremost man in our formative years. And if you have a good one, that is great and will be a guaranteed blessing over your entire life. But what about the fathers who are warned in the verse above?

This verse is actually almost verbatim in Ephesians 6:4:” And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture (training) and admonition OF the Lord.”  

So we are being told what NOT to do and exactly what we should do. Children who are constantly “ridden” by their parents, who are made to feel whether intentionally or unintentionally that they are never quite good enough, or “perform” well enough to “earn” the love that they should have naturally received from that parent.

I do know this verse specifies fathers, but we know the damage mothers can do is equally as damaging.

And we could pull a truck load of stats on the completely dysfunctional mother/son relationships that are often prominent among serial killers.

So what I want to focus on the relationship of fathers to daughters and the relationships that are formed later in life.

I also want to bring into the mix the fact that often when women have had extremely dominating fathers and whether that consisted of physical abuse alongside the obvious emotional damage that is caused, that seems to put the pattern in place.

But testosterone is a funny thing and soul debilitating dominance lorded over women is not ALWAYS by their fathers. It can come later in life through a boyfriend, husband, or even male friends who can become quite the material for a medieval tale of when black knights begin to suffer from white knight syndrome .

When “friendship” leads to the need to control your life, and demand answers for your every move that is no longer friendship, that IS control. Male dominance has been and is still our toughest battle regardless of what role that male has in our life.

But for some, it is a short path from growing up with a horrid father to marrying an even worse husband.

So how did it start? People taking the word of God and their DISTORTED view of God and applying THEIR carnality to it. Just as God answered it in his word: 

Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel: EVERY MAN DID THAT WHICH WAS RIGHT IN HIS OWN EYES.”

And things have certainly NOT been right and are still NOT right.

But with the revelation of Isaiah 33:22: “For the Lord IS our judge, the Lord IS our lawgiver, the Lord IS our king; HE WILL SAVE US.”

We know things can and must change. Cruelty and wickedness hiding behind the disguise of goodness and righteousness is nothing new.

The devil himself pretending through the serpent to be a friend to Eve, the wicked all through the Bible whispering into the ears of those who would hear, plans of how to destroy another and thereby having them also destroy themselves.

“Spare the rod, spoil the child” taken so far out of context and USED specifically as a Biblical justification for nothing more than truly sadistic people to senselessly beat children.

If you doubt me on that, web search a few cases of children being adopted and even born into supposedly christian families taken away, rescued out of horrendous abuse. People have even written books advocating these UNGODLY practices.

The old Testament ALSO had a law on stoning your son.. IF he were  a drunkard.. how many little kids drink again?

Listen what Jesus told the Pharisees when they were hassling him about the OT marriage laws.

Mark 10:3-5; “And he answered and said,unto them, What did Moses command you? and they said, Moses suffered (PERMITTED) to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 

And Jesus answered and said unto them, (Because) For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.”

Meaning that they WERE given these severe laws because of their own hardness.

But God reveals His thoughts through His word, James 2:13: “For he SHALL have judgment WITHOUT mercy who hath shewed (shown) NO MERCY; and mercy rejoiceth against (TRIUMPHS OVER) judgment.” 

It is like this, just because we are technically allowed to do something DOES NOT mean that is what God desires for us to do it.

Micah 6:8:” He hath shewed thee, O man, ( all people), what IS good; and what doth (does) the Lord require of thee,  but to do justly and LOVE MERCY (loving kindness),and to walk humbly with thy God? 

So if all of this coupled with stories such as when the angel of the Lord put the smack down on Balaam and lined him out for hitting the donkey (Numbers 22:27-33),  doesn’t prove that God want us to ALL be kind toward each other and to also BE treated kindly, I don’t know what more could.

Just as treating children harshly came from the thoughts of people doing what they wanted.

We also got pulled into the “submission” trap. The Bible does truly say, “wives submit unto your own husbands” but again that is something that has been taken and RAN wild with, as if we were some sort of inferior creation that God placed here for men.

Oh I don’t think so.

Submission means to RESPECT your husband, to care about his feelings and not treat him like dirt, don’t make fun of him, and emotionally emasculate him by being that “brawling” woman spoken of in Proverbs.

God’s intentions for this was that the husband SHOULD be exactly what His word said for him to be.

And in this a husband was to be “submitted” to, as in a place of safety and a place of trust, such as that verse goes on to say “as unto the Lord”.

And I would love to hear the excuses that so many are going to try to give the Lord as to why they betrayed this TRUST that he had given them with their wives and children, and it’s not going to be a pretty picture!

So it DOES NOT mean we are subservient, or a lesser in God’s eyes.

It means that we SHOULD have that protective, nurturing, place if we ever need and at times we all do.

We covered His word in the last post of how He EXPECTS His daughters to be treated and seeing that even in a nation where women have many rights and “hold our own” we can all attest to our numbers of domestic violence, for all the strides we have made, in this area, we have gone backward!

We ARE more free. We HAVE more resources. We HAVE better laws and protection. So what went wrong? Why do we have these statistics that say we are NOT free by any stretch of imagination?

We are still trapped somewhere in our psyches by the lies of the past and the misogynistic teachings of generations before and we want to HIDE that pain and we are giving over to absolutely FALSE sense of shame by not speaking out.

That is what the enemy WANTS and just as he lied to Eve, he is lying to so many women about their past and keeping them in a “strangle hold” that prevents them from moving FORWARD.

Merriam-Webster definition two of the term “STRANGLE HOLD” is this: “A FORCE OR INFLUENCE THAT CHOKES OR SUPPRESSES FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT OR EXPRESSION.”  

If we have that past or are presently living with dominance, harshness, physical, or emotional abuse that is exactly what is happening to us.

The reason the devil has perfected it is because if you have had these experiences with men, especially fathers or husbands, HOW on earth can you “submit” to a being who is male?

When women are brainwashed into BELIEVING that they are subservient and God hates them, why would they seek Him?

The devil bagged and tagged on this one and we have to stop him!

We stop him by NOT taking anyone’s word for who we are or who God created us to be. Study God’s word and discover for yourself!

And when you reach the verses stating that “women are to be silent” and  “i suffer not a woman to teach…” STUDY the background with a good dictionary/history Bible and you will find that Paul was talking to a specific group of people AT THAT TIME. Because a group of women were “gunning” for him and trying to bring in false teachings and for that PERIOD IN TIME, he forbade them to speak so he could PROTECT the Gospel.

Need a little more reassurance, dig this, Galatians 3:23,28: “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith that should afterwards be revealed.

Wherefore  the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

But after THAT faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For YE ALL ARE THE CHILDREN OF GOD by faith in Jesus Christ. 

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.  There is NEITHER Jew nor Greek,  there is NEITHER bond nor free, THERE IS NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE; FOR YE ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST.”

That is a good verse to put to anyone who wants to argue Paul’s teachings with you…. he wrote that. He wrote the verses used to silence women and he wrote the verse that proved otherwise,  all true, but taken out of context by those who WANT to twist those verses to justify their own prejudices.

It’s time to separate God from the men who claim to represent him! If you are dealing with these issues or dealing with the past issues, PLEASE talk to Him, talk to Him just as if he were in the room sitting there.

I promise He does hear and tell Him how you feel, TRUTHFULLY how you feel, if you end up in tears and “I HATE…” starts coming out of your mouth, LET IT COME because the only way we recover is through submitting that to God and HE KNOWS how we feel and when you have been hurt and are trying to work past it.

God is not going to hold that against you, it is normal to feel that way and once you let it go, you will NO LONGER feel that.

But you have to get it out, ALL of it, at His feet, Hebrews 4:15: “For we have NOT an high priest which cannot be touched WITH THE FEELINGS OF OUR INFIRMITIES…” 

Which means Jesus suffered through all the things we do and HE DOES UNDERSTAND any possible thing you could tell Him and he understands with love, compassion, and gentleness toward you and He wants to take it away and give you peace and be those protective arms that hold you through your tears.

But first we must decide that we are slaves no more and no more will we live in the devil’s strangle hold.

There is NO shame in having been a victim and there is courage in admitting that you are a survivor. There is NO shame in needing out NOW and fear is perfectly normal when fighting for your freedom.

We just have to decide which we are WILLING to be. Think about these verses: Isaiah 53:4-6,11: ” Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither shall thou be confounded (disgraced); for thou shalt not be put to shame; for thou SHALT FORGET the shame of thy youth, and SHALT NOT REMEMBER the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 

For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. 

For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused (suffered rejection) saith thy God.  

O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, (tormented and battered by ‘storm”)  and NOT comforted. behold, I WILL lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy FOUNDATIONS with sapphires.”

He knows, and He alone can give us that comfort that we have not been given, He alone see the pain of every season we can go through.

And He alone can lay for us that beautiful foundation, built upon Him and His TRUTH. Trust Him, know Him and most of all, let Him know you!

Related posts: “Grinding the ax” 1 “acknowledgement”

“Grinding the ax” 2… “Real Love?”

“Grinding the ax” #3 “Anger Danger”

*Authors note* This series originally posted on “Alabaster Breaking”, my sister site, that no longer exists. I found it very difficult to maintain both sites and just transferred those most to this, my main site. Thank you

Εξυπνιζω NBJ 2017

Revisited post: 06/15/2019

 

 

by

Finding Paris

“The wilderness and the solitary (desert, lonely, desolate) place shall be glad for them, and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert SHALL rejoice and BLOSSOM AS THE ROSE.” Isaiah 35:1

Finding Paris, strange I know but trust me this is not going to be a world travel post but hopefully a travel to the inner space of ourselves and all those emotions and hopes, and dreams that old man time tends to run roughshod over and with the passage of time we forget that we even had those dreams.

The notion of “romantic” Paris is probably as old as dirt but the mention of the name usually brings to mind, roses, beauty, the Eiffel tower, whose reach toward the sky can be quite a reflection of reaching higher and the sheer romance of all it all will stir the feminine heart in a way unlike any other place on earth.

When as little girls do we first have those feelings that we are DIFFERENT, is in when we sneak into the perfumes, jewelry, and all the “womanly” treasures often found on the dressers of our mothers?

And for me there was nothing quite like the beautiful stationery that my big sister used when writing mushy love letters to her boyfriend who was in the army.

I’d watch her put the gold seal on the envelope and could not wait until I was big enough to have fancy gold seals and write mushy love letters!

And there was nothing quite like sitting playing with my doll watching her and Mom try new lipsticks and hairdo’s together because I SO was going to wear make up and do my hair just like them one day.

And I know you have your memories of when all things feminine, and beautiful stirred in you.

No matter what kind of a childhood you have had, even if it was not influenced by your own mother, there was still a lady, a grandmother, someone that you looked up as a what being female was all about.

There is always still some thread in time that influenced you and stirred thoughts in your heart and your soul that led to the journey of “finding Paris”, that beautiful place of womanhood that we are all eventually led to.

With me I really had to hold on, after my sister married and my mom started worked the majority of my time was spent with my brothers and that could be a whole other post series!

Hard to stay focused on future femininity with daily wrestling, name calling, and “gas” contests going on constantly between them, but thank goodness for afternoon television visits with Ginger Grant 😉 

So WHAT were your hopes, dreams, and destination as you planned as a child? Bear them in mind.

Usually, we do find “Paris”, when we are around fifteen or sixteen, we blossom, discover our own style, we grow inside and become more self-aware, and often more assertive in being allowed who we want to be.

There is a freedom in knowing who we are as women but life changes so fast, especially when we are young.

As as the clock starts to tick the newness wearing off, things never quite measuring up to what our expectations had been, and real life sets in.

Soon the moon over the tower loses luster and doesn’t shine quite so brightly and the captivating scents of jasmine and lilac fade, and petals start to fall from those beautiful roses.

Life does that, bad relationships do that, like countless women who married young, married FOREVER, expecting the road ahead to be filled with happiness, family and Prince Charming only to find that Prince Charming was in reality, the Prince of Persia, (a Biblical reference to Lucifer) that lied, cheated, and battered them and always managed to convince them that they were to blame.

And choosing to leave, others have been faced with being single mothers, taking on the role of both parents, doing the back breaking work of often working two jobs to provide and the double duty task of feeding, clothing, laundry, housework, not one moment for themselves or to worry about what they may need or even want because their children come first.

Others, for a multitude of reasonings, become entangled in bad lifestyle choices and professions that leave you in place alright, but it certainly isn’t paris.

And those who have had good lives but have suffered loss of family, friends, and worse of their children, have actually lost parts of themselves and have a hard time trying to move forward because their hearts long for the happy days of the past, the days when the still had those who have gone on.

The dreams of long ago have but vanished and just making it through the day, week, or month becomes the focus.

No joy, no hope, and no more believing for a “magical” age or time when things will change because as we become jaded, we lose hope, we lose faith, and we lose the ability to see past circumstances to see that “paris” is still really there, it still exists, we just have to find our way back to it and we have to find a way to rekindle the desire to even want to go there.

Last time we talked about aging and the fact that TIME is NOTHING to God, AGE is nothing to God.

He has ALL power in heaven and earth, and time bends to his will.

The scripture above so perfectly reflects what goes on in so many of us, the wilderness, the places we find ourselves in but can’t find our way out.

The lonely deserts, lonely, barren times in life when it seems that nothing you have planted will ever grow and all your best efforts are met with scorching thirst.

But it is in journeying to this place that you will find refreshment, you will find joy, and your hard, dry places will blossom with a beauty you have never known, God created us to have all those wonderful feelings and He wants you to feel loved, beautiful, and precious, and priceless in Him and only He can renew, restore, and rejuvenate all the areas inside and out in each of us that need refreshed.

That really is what it all about, you are still you, you are still the same person you were when He created you, NOTHING can ever change your core being. If you find yourself in a desert you need to stop and take stock, don’t look at the desert, don’t beat yourself up or question how you ended up there.

Ecclesiastes 7:10: “Say NOT thou, What IS THE CAUSE that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.”

Which means that we are not to question that the past was better than our present and in doing so we are not asking the right question.

REMEMBER where you were going, what you wanted to accomplish, REVIVE your hopes, REMEMBER your dreams and ask God to show you what He wants you to see in that place.

It’s like the alabaster breaking, which will we soon get to, we have to want change, we have to be to the point that it is all or nothing and in that place your rose will again bloom and it will bloom abundantly and you will be made completely new.

Jesus NEVER touched or touches a life without that life being made COMPLETELY new, new thoughts, new joy, new peace, and a renewed hope that THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING and your life is a book not yet written. 

Of course, He knows the plans, but for us it is ALL BLANK PAGES AND A CLEAN SLATE and with that you can dream again, you can hope again, and you can feel beautiful, feminine, and BE exactly WHO HE CREATED YOU TO BE!

Don’t be so sure life is “over” when it has even yet begun!

So go, go find Paris! If you thought the first time was good, the second time is going to blow your mind! 

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33

Have A Blessed Week! Εξυπιζω NBJ 2017