A Woman Who Fears the Lord

"Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that fears the   Lord; she shall be praised."  -Prov. 31:30

Last Friday night's Women's Ministry Meeting, I felt led of the Lord to share my heart about the subject above. I am going to attempt to share a few key-points here.

Favor's Deceit:

Beware of the deceit of favor's flattering tongue that may drip with the sweet words as honey and yet sour as soon as you yield to their
enticement.

 Dorian Gray enticed young virgins, entrapping them by his flattering tongue and Adonis like physique in Oscar Wilde's novel... The enemy of your soul knows just exactly who to send across your pathway to entice you from your relationship with your Lord. Let your affirmation come from God! Do not entangle yourself in the allurement of false lips...whose secret agenda is for their own fleshly gain. And once their trap is successfully laid and their evil web is spun around their target, they come in and take what they desire, only to leave their prey laying in a heap; paralyzed and dying. God has everything you are looking for. Let the Lover of Your Soul satisfy you at all times!

Beauty's Vanity

Guess what? No matter how you powder, pluck, nip, tuck, plump, lipo, botox; no matter how splendidly you dress...while obsessing in the mirror for hours, it is all going south!  Trust me! I have lived long enough to have realized the delusion of a "Fountain of Youth."

The men and women I have observed at the Nursing Home where my mother lives have taught me some life lessons. I know that at one time they were all little "Hotties"....but now....they are "Notties!"
The beauty that the Lord desires is that of a meek and quiet spirit. Kindness and gentleness that mirrors the heart of Jesus.

Fear's Praise

The children of the Virtuous Woman rise up and call her blessed. To rise up here means to, "stand up" and "blessed" means to shine. The Lord himself says that to have a reverential fear of the Lord, is to live a life of love and submission to His word and His will and to walk in obedience to the promptings of His Spirit.

I can envision how her children stand to defend and honor her. How they love her and rise up to help her in her old age. And when her body lays before them and her soul is with finally with God, they stand; honoring her memory; heralding her favorably for the beautiful woman and mother of God she had faithfully lived before them.

 I see her husband also, as he sits back listening with a satisfied look on his face; as his beloved wife an is honored by their children. He stands proudly to his feet and boasts of her in the gates.

Whether you are in the city or country, at home, work, school... No matter where you are... No matter whether you have earthly children or spiritual ones....(those you have influenced someway for Christ)...and whether or not you are married....(we are betrothed to the son of God...we are His bride)...If you have lived the life I have spoken of above and not allowed Favor's Deceit to entrap, or Beauty's Vanity to obsess...but you have lived in reverence to your Lord....you have Fear's Praise...and You are called "Blessed".  

So................Shine! Woman of God, Shine!!!

Who Knew?

Who knew you would capture my heart the way you do? 
Who knew your love would take my heart and make it new?
Who knew that you would be my lover and my friend? Be faithful to the end...Who knew?


Who knew that seasons would come and they would go?
Who knew that love would die and then be born?
Who knew that in the dark, I'd take your hand; you'd help me stand....Who knew?

Life has many twists and turns; there's good and bad, happy and sad...and then there's times when you lay wondering...how did my life come to this?
And as the world keeps spinning round; time passes swiftly and can't be found...the days of youth are passing too...Who knew?.....Who knew?

Who knew that I'd grow old with you and feel brand new?
Who knew that we'd find joy when there seemed none?
Who knew that together we would build our home?...Who knew?

Who knew today I'd cry; then laugh again?
Who knew there's some things we can't comprehend?
Who knew that simple trust is invisible power; that keeps us going this very hour...
Who knew? Who knew?

Life is full of unanswered questions, and things for which there's no comprehension...but I know...you'll be by my side. So I will walk and sometimes soar; and bow my knees before the Lord and thank him for another day or month or year...another smile...another tear....and sometimes I will just stand in awe....and ask once more....

Who knew?

Harlot & Pharisee Meet Jesus

 I read a book once... called the Bible. I saw where there was a woman who was caught in the very act of being a sinner...I read where there were Pharisees of the day just doing what they were used to doing....what they were commanded to do...before they had truly met JESUS personally....but that day....HE opened all of their eyes....sinner woman...and white washed saint.....Jesus got eye level with the sinner and wrote something.... and so powerful was the moment.....then He said to all of them....sinner woman...and Pharisee...."Let him who is without sin...Cast the first stone"....Their reaction? ....They dropped their stones to the ground at the realization that for all their keeping of the LAW....for all their trying...sin remained in their lives ....The woman? She received the message of forgiveness along with a mandate from the only one who was without sin...Who DID cast the first stone...so that all mankind could be free from all condemnation of sin...and yet with the mandate....which was the same as when he first spoke it to the woman....."Go, and sin no more!" For all the years I, like this woman, have lived as a forgiven sinner, there have been many who have fallen short of the glory of God and have worn the cloak of the Pharisee well...but truly inside was the scarlet robe of the harlot written in their fleshly hearts. I am a Christian not because there is any good thing in my flesh, but only because my sins have been washed away supernaturally by the blood of the Perfect Son of God....who said ..."Follow Me.... The trouble with us forgiven sinners? We often follow the desire in our fleshly hearts rather than the example to love as Jesus does. I am realizing the more I literally take an honest look in my own heart...I still see a stone...JESUS...THE ROCK of AGES...cleft for me....He still daily covers a multitude of sins by HIS LOVE. Bob Carlisle wrote a song a few years ago that said, "We fall down, we get up...and the saints become the sinners; who fall down...and get up." License to sin? NO!....but truth....that on our best day as forgiven sinners, saints, Christ-followers...or Christians...who try everything humanly to "do right"....we fall short. BUT Jesus never fails! I look to him who is the Author and Finisher of my faith. Change my focus to HIM...he shines His truth on my sin....I choose to repent; get up out of the dirt and Follow Him...doing the best I can not to sin that sin anymore..and try to make reconciliation and restitution to others when I realize I have sinned against them...Trusting NOT in my own ability to save myself....but in HIS FINISHED work on Calvary for me. I read a book once.....I met a man once...Jesus!

Gone to us...but not to God!

How can it be that she is gone? Gone to us...but not to God. She is holding his nail scarred hand just beyond the veil as she whispers, "I have run the race and I have obtained the prize and even though you cannot see me...I am here..with the Great Cloud of Witnesses who have gone on before...and we being dead to this world are ALIVE EVERMORE...through the great work of Jesus and the shedding of his blood. WE shall be reunited again! Where we will never more be separated...and OH, what a glad reunion day that shall be! "Fight the Good Fight...for with my eyes I have beheld the Great Hope...JESUS!..."Run, Children!...Run to Jesus! Run with this HOPE...Share it with others...and HOLD ON! Press ON!.....and don't ever you quit!

The Last Visit with My Sister-n-Law "GENE"

There's a chill in the air as death hovers, waiting it's last order from the mouth of God. A dear saint and sister-in-law lays just at the door. Between uneven breathes; with widened eyes she wakes from a brief rest...and smiles. Her concern was more for those of us who sat around her bedside. As our minds searched familiar scenes of happy times together; the... pain....and realization lay just beyond the veil. The steady tick of life's clock winding down to the final stroke of HIS appointed time. I watched for death to come...then...but not yet. I looked at the faces of those she has loved who have gathered with their last moments of personal blessings...a touch, a glance, a smile, a memory shared. A shared glance between lovers espoused for 42 yrs...an I love you etched in time..."I'm going home tomorrow!"...she says. (I think)...To Heaven?...Oh yes, Hospice has been called. The last of Earth's hope setting the stage...and Jesus...Conqueror of Death, Hell and the Grave awaits!... "I am almost there..." ...she said to me. I thought..."Yes, you are....to Heaven!"... Jordan's River is before you and you have dipped your toes in its chilly banks. You have stood there with outstretched arm as you are holding the hands of those you so greatly love...and a tearing away has begun. I see it clearly. Held between Earth and Eternity. From the love here, to the Lover and Purchaser of your soul.......Oh, we weep.....for now. It is meant to be. Sorrow for a Season...But one day...the Great Exchange.....because JOY comes for all of us....in the morning! I'll see you Tomorrow...(Genie Beanie)

HIS PRESENCE

Now that the gifts are unwrapped and the season is soon ending; there is one gift that will never grow old or fade. His Presence!

Imagine that first night when his mother Mary and earthly father Joseph first beheld him. He wrapped them in His Presence in that lowly place and made the common place a heavenly one.

And the shepherds who heard the "good tidings"; when they broke through the door of that stable to see a tiny babe just as the angels had told them. But not just an ordinary child. The Holy One was Born! The Living Word...Emmanuel....God with us....lay upon soft hay in a manger; not wrapped in kingly attire, but in a common cloth as common as they....but....when they beheld him....awakening happened as he shrouded them in the glory of His Presence!

Those very wise men who followed a different star and traveled a dangerous journey not knowing where they would end up in that quest and not realizing that they would behold the very Son of God; where that star would finally rest. When they beheld him they presented their most noble riches to him and in exchange His love and light shone upon them as He wrapped them in the Glory of His Presence.

Common parents, common shepherds, and royal kings. From the lowly to the elite. In His Presence there is no respect of persons. In His Presence there is true unity. In His Presence is fullness of joy. In His Presence is the essence of all light and life and joy! And in His Presence is salvation; peace and goodwill to all men!
There is no greater gift.
There has never been any better presents than being in His Presence!

God Sends The Rain

Sometimes...God sends the rain. I've always loved the rain...but not always the danger that might come from it. A gentle rain...ah....it is for laying your back with closed eyes and allowing it to refresh; harder rain is needed to get deep into the soil (soul) where good things need water to grow...

...but a really hard rain....that is a heart-breaker...
because when the rain comes you cannot see your way...it can keep you at a standstill until it passes and you can asses the damage it has brought...
but...still....it washes away...and hopefully underneath what appears to be total destruction...will be the tiniest green shoot of new hope arising.

 Jesus said that weeping may last for a night...but joy will come in the morning.

There is a morning coming!

There will be a day without rain and the ... sun (SON) will shine again.


Take heart! Sometimes...God sends the rain.

We will find our way and we will see hope reborn.