Time Passages

Today is a new day!  As you can see, it has been awhile since I made a commitment to writing.  So much has happened, and it seems like it has been a very short time. As I look back over the last few years I can see where God has brought me to this point.  They say hindsight is 20/20...that is not far from the truth!  I remember talking with Ray one evening, the house was quiet, (which didn't happen much at the Ellis house), and wondering where our 20's went.

 That was in the eighties...we were out in the world living life, starting our family, kids were little, money, well what was that anyway...we had Love!  Maybe it was a good thing that we forgot much of that time!  So funny!  But really, it seemed to go in the blink of an eye, looking back...

Being real is what I am.  It was what our life is, and was and is to come.  Nothing I dislike more than leaving out the reality, because I really think that our imperfections helps us to connect to one another and help to encourage others who have walked a similar path, through our stories.  The Bible says,
In I Corinthians 10:13 The Message:

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face.  All you need to remember is that God will never let you down;  He'll never let you be pushed past your limit; He'll always be there to help you come through it.

I believe the bible is our training manual.  In this verse it says that we go through the same things as other people.  Circumstances may be a bit different, But God...will not let you down.  Sometimes, I would think, "How much more can I take?"  He DOES give us more that WE can take, or at least He knows our limitations.  HE knows...He's there...He gives you options.  He also gave us this little thing called free will...As I have gone through my life I can think of countless times that I made mistakes, bad choices even when I knew better.

He has been there like a shepherd going after that lost sheep...there's been times that like a sheep, I've done things wrong more than once...and like a shepherd, He's had to break my legs so I couldn't run, so He'd have to carry me, so I would depend on Him and Him alone.  Not on myself.

The next few weeks, I want to show you...my scenic route on this journey of life on earth, for the benefit of those who read, to encourage, to understand, to help us all dig deeper and seek first...God!

Family-Made to Shine

Here is a post that I did not complete, was written in 2014, just finished it!:

Tonight and Sunday, I am privileged to be teaching kids about Family.  This is the 4th part of the series.  God never ceases to amaze me, in that He gives me exactly what I need, WHEN I need it.  

The first weeks we learned about how Family is our foundation.  You need a strong foundation to build your life upon, with of course, Jesus as the Cornerstone.    We learned that Family is made for teamwork.  We need one another, we can't do it alone!  We learned that Families are there to care, share, and just be there.  This week we will be learning that Families are there to SHINE!  All this was meant for the kids...but moreso...for me.

This week has been a hard week as I said goodbye to one of my favorite Aunties, My Auntie Glenda passed from this world, broken from the effects of cancer to the completeness of Jesus and into heaven, where she is with all who have gone before.

As she was leaving, she said, "Love, love, love!"  Aunt Glenda loved everyone.  I remember a time when my dad and I lived with her in the upstairs room of their house and she took care of me along with my cousins, as if I were one of her very own. As I grew up, we would visit, I'd get to spend the night with my cousins.  Always fun times. 

In my twenties and thirties, my husband Ray, and the girls and I would go to their cabin in Pine Grove "Our Mountain".  We'd tent camp and always had a great time with family.  Our family knew how to LOVE!  They also knew how to Party, as we'd spend many nights around the campfire, singing songs, playing guitar, between my cousin Mark on guitar, Kelly (who'd sometimes break out the spoons!), me on guitar and everyone singing, it was always a great time!  In July, the last weekend we went one year or two to "Garibaldi Days" on the Oregon Coast, we'd camp and crab at Jetty Fishery and go down Saturday morning for the parade after being up super late playing and singing around the campfire.  I remember this time one of my aunties or their friends let me know, when I was telling them I was going to head for the tent to sleep, "You're done playing, when WE say you're done playing!"  Met by roars of laughter.

My Aunt Glenda has a son, Tony, who when I was a little girl, teased me relentlessly.  Threw my Chatty Cathy doll out the window, she was never the same.  You'd pull the string and nothin'.  He was 6 months younger than me and we could get into trouble.  We went into the lumber mill next door to the house, had to pick out switches when we got back.  We weren't supposed to go over there, it was dangerous.  Didn't do that again!  One day when we were older, he drew my name for Christmas.  Always a practical joker, I didn't know what to expect!  I gingerly opened the gift and out popped a springing snake!  Of Course!  Should I expect less? But, there was something in the bottom of the box that brought me to tears.  It was a Brach's candy wreath with scissors attached and a big bow!  What made that so special is that my Great Grandmother, we called her Gra, always made these for each family at Christmas time.  What a precious gift!  Tony facetimed me the other day.  It was so good to hear from him.

My Aunt Glenda came to my play my senior year, my karaoke contest when I was older.  Ray would stop by her house just to say hi and give me updates as in his job he traveled.  

A lot of my Aunties and uncles are gone now and we are now the "old guys" in the family as Tony stated to me.  We have been and we are now the ones that need to SHINE for the next generations of our kids, and grandkids.  

There is a verse in I Corinthians that sums up this Shinyness and Love, Love, Love that I am reminded of when I think of my family, both by blood and those people who are close to me.


The Way of Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I five away all I have and if I deliver up by body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.  As for prophesies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will ceasee; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but then the perfect comes the partial will pass away.  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.                   I Corinthians 13

My Auntie got it!  She shared it!  She was and is a living example of it!  Love, love, love!  Lord, may I be an example of this Love to  everyone!

Happy Mothers Day!  I write today because I have been blessed by Mothers.  I had a birth mother, an adopted mother, a step mother (although she never really was a "step" that is something that you walk on), a great-grandmother, many grandmas, and MANY spiritual mothers as well as teachers, who may not have been mothers, but acted as our mother as we were at school, friends my own age, who have not been mothers, but acted like mothers as they guided me, helped me.  Oh, and...yep I am a mother, grandmother and a great-grandmother myself! 

I am humbled to be in this great group of women around the world, and that people saw fit to give US a day to be blessed and that God saw fit to include women, and Mothers in His plan.  We, women everywhere, have at some time in our lives been mothers.  Proverbs 31 states what the characteristics are of a good mother.  I believe that all women, everywhere, have fit into those wise words of Solomon, which were God-breathed.

We have all:  lived, worked, cleaned, cooked, spent time, shared life experiences, listened, held, cried, hugged, scolded, time-outed, wiped away tears of joy, pain, heart-ache, played games, laughed but most of all we have loved...God...and one another!

Happy Mother's Day!  Enjoy today...

 

Let's Make a Deal! 

 

 
Today, I felt lead by God to share about making "Deals" with God.  I remember as a child, I used to try to make deals with God.  "God if you do this for me, I'll do ____for you".  "If you get me out of this...I will do that."  Never worked out for me...go figure.  Sometimes we play the "when, then" game as well.  "When we ______, then we will ________."  We do not call the shots.  We have no control.  Today I heard an alarming statement from a person dear to me to the God that is everything to me.  A "when" "then" statement.  I began to feel a giant sadness in my heart for this person.  They were making a "deal" with God.
 
Now, what this person does not understand is that in order to make a "deal"  each party must have something that the other person needs.  According to Acts 17:23-25:  The Bible tells us
 
 23 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
 
I think that in our humanness, we forget who God is!  He is the very One who created everything with His very breath!!!  He spoke, and it came into existence.  The Universe, the Earth and everything in it and on it.  He does not need anything from us.  He is perfect, there is nothing that we can give Him that He needs or wants.  If he does have something for us to do for Him, the end result is to give him the Glory and Honor and Praise. 
 

 
 
He does not need anything from us, but we need Him.  Sometimes when we feel like we are being "picked on" and we blame God for our circumstances we forget that we are blaming the wrong person.  We should be praying against the evil one.  Our God loves us, He loved us so much that He gave His only SON to take the punishment for our sins. (Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God", Romans 6:23"For the wages of sin is death, but the Gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus)

 
Our God does not want us to suffer or hurt, but we are a stubborn and sinful people.  We want it our way.  God, our creator wants it His way.  Sometimes the only way that we will listen is for God to allow us to have our way and be taken so far down the only way that we have to look is up.  I remember a time when I was there, my hubby and I had a disagreement, the kids where being challenging and I was at my breaking point.  I got in my car, drove up the Columbia River Gorge and finally stopped at Multnomah Falls parking area.  I was screaming and crying to myself about the situation and I said, "I don't even have any friends to talk to, to share these things with who will understand!"  As I cried, I looked over at the glory of the falls and followed them from the bottom to the top and just kept looking up.  I said, "Oh yeah, I have you.  I forgot you are my best friend, Jesus.  Please forgive me for forgetting.  I am having a really bad time.  Please help me."  I continued to pray for the entire situation giving it ALL up to Him. 
 
We have no control over the past, we can only change today and make strides toward our future...our prize.  We need to turn our past over to God and KNOW that if we are reminded of the bad times, that does not come from God, because the evil one knows how to trip us up.  He is a deceiver, seeking to steal and destroy us.  We need not make "DEALS" with God but to turn our cares to Him and He will just love us and care for us.  We need to trust Him, alone.

The Hurt and the Healer

Today was a day like any other during the Summer of 2012.  As I traveled to my job, into Portland, listened to MercyMe's "The Hurt and the Healer" (which seems to play everyday about the same time on my favorite radio station).  I was thinking and praying for my sister's family and for our strained relationship.  In the middle of traffic, passing by cars, vans, Semi-trucks, merging into the right lane so I could make the on ramp for I-5 Northbound, I prayed for those who suffered recent loss that God would give them peace as only He can do.  Made it to work, helping to train an awesome young lady, when I receive a phone call from my cousin.  "My cousin?" " I better take this one" I say....She delivers the news...my brother in law had passed away, losing his long battle with cancer....she needed me to know before I would find out on facebook as many relatives were posting their "R.I.P's".   I am not ashamed to say that I was devastated, in shock I sat motionless, trying to hold it together, smile as I finished helping with a patient.  The same feeling that I had when I lost my dad, my stepson, my nephew, good friends and family came over me like a wave.  I  heard the same verse that I had JUST read in my one year Bible reading during my break...The very same verse that resonates through my head during all of my times loss...

Job 1:21“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

God had just prepared me for what I was about to, in a matter of minutes, experience.  "Why?"  I cried out on my way home.  "Lord please give my sister the strength to endure this..."   My sweet baby sister...and her son.  How much more can they handle?  Of course, I was grieving my loss, but so much more for her and her son and my mother, who also lives with them. 

It is so easy during these times to turn away from God for some people...Why would he let this happen?  When is enough, enough?  We have to remember that no tear we cry goes unnoticed by Him.  He IS there, going through it, right along with us, carrying us through.  I love my sister, and nephew and mother....BUT GOD loves them MORE! 

Sometimes we go through the darkness to find the Light.  Look at Mary, Martha and Lazarus...Lazarus was dying, Mary and Martha sent for Jesus to come and heal him.  Jesus finally got there when Lazarus had been dead for three days.  Where was He when they needed him the most??  Then... after He mourns (Jesus wept)  he performs a miracle!  He raised Lazarus from the dead! He knew what he was doing then.  He knows what He is doing now.

As I stated before, my sister and I have a strained relationship.  I believe that God will do his miracle there.  I have tried everything in my human power to mend the relationship only speaking words of love to her. In her world, a world of sickness, pain and inevitable death as she has been caregiver for both her husband, son, and our mother...she is simply overwhelmed and I am the target.  I get that.  I love her anyway...if there is no reconciliation, I have to accept it and move forward. 

I was reading this evening about Abraham and his calling and faith and even though he made mistakes along the way, God still used him and called him friend.  He had him leave his country, his family and follow Him.  Fast forward to New Testament times.  Matthew 10:34-39

³⁴ “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father,     a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law —³⁶ a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’^[c]

³⁷ “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

I believe what Jesus is saying is  "If you actually follow me, your family may not agree with you, and if that happens, you'll have to choose between following me even if it displeases them (which could cause division) or compromising your obedience to me in order to please your family. I need to be first in your life."

So as I go, praying for a miracle, I know, in faith that I will be okay, that they will be okay, it all comes down to Jesus...and trusting the Healer with the Hurt.