Right Here

  In the course of human events, we can have some of the most irrational of thoughts.  I once thought that tragedy could only be solved by movement.  Go to a place that does not know you.  Flee to a place that you don’t know.  I thought that if you could get to a better place than that place will be better.  I did not know that healing in the place of your hurt was even  better than healing in the place where you weren’t hurt.  I have been in this town long enough to have some true blue friends and some sworn enemies.  I have cried tears that I never thought I would cry here.  My greatest disappointment in life happened right here.  I am talking about the thing that I try to sleep off because it has followed me to my bed and has seeped into my dreams.  When I awake, it is still sitting on the  side of my bed.  I could run from the barrenness of the place where I was made barren, stripped of every bit of who I once was.  I could run, but what if the flowers bloom right here.  What if the wind blows the seeds of hope into my field and I watch it pop up in rows.  What happens if the rains come and the streams swell with sunfish.  I don’t want to be somewhere else, when my garden blooms right here.  I think I hear the sound of the abundance of rain………

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Works burned

Early this morning, I had a dream about my mother.  She was extremely unperfect and she died many years ago.  In the dream, she was dead, but her works were being tried.  When a person dies, their works can live far after they have hit the ground.  Their works can live into the next generation.  Joseph's works lived on long after Joseph died.  In th dream, she had bought me clothing and makeup which I interepreted were trinckets of her affection.  God did not even consider them.  He came after the way she allowed the enemy to ransack her home.  She had to give an account of the rules of Christ she blatantl ignored.  She stood with no answer, but desperately seeking one.  I believe this is a warning to the body of Christ that can do things for motives other than the Kingdom.  The Bible says that when the works are burned, the builder suffers great loss, but he is saved from the fire.  How can we be saved and still experience such great loss.  That is how.  God knows why you do what you do.  You really can't fool God.

Willful Sin

In the third chapter of Genesis, Eve is decieved by the serpent and she eats the forbidden fruit.  Adam is not decieved, he just followed Eve.  He eats the forbidden fruit.  I know generations of people who still find the lure of forbidden fruit tempting.  You can see it in the way that they execute their lives.  Many of them are church babies who just had to see what it would be like to.......  I look at Adam and Eve and think of their sin.  If they did not have the law that the tree was forbidden, redemption would have looked different.  Because they knew the law, redemption came, but they had to loose something.  They lost paradise.  The paradise they lost was not restored.  Willful sin is like that.  You will never have the life you gave up to have the life you had.  Why would God give you back everything you gave up.  No, he restores some and he leaves your life a bit wanting because you never get paradise back again.

Becoming Vera

I can remember when I turned into my mother.  Without desire and without direction, I turned into my mother.  I can remember my mother never owned a pair of blue jeans.  As a matter of fact, she was not a big pants wearer except when she was working.  My mother's staple item was a dress.  I don't ever remember her wearing sweat pants or even shorts.  Sundresses were a bit too risque.  She was trained to be modest in appearance even if it did not reach her heart.  About three years ago, I began to ditch wearing pants.  I picked up wearing them for the same reason my mother did.  They were functional for where I worked.  When it was clear that my job title was changing, I stopped wearing pants.  I looked just like my mother.  I donned a wig, painted my lips red and became the woman she always wanted to be.  My mother would turn over in her grave if she could see me living the life she never got to live.  I guess, I am living proof that curses really can be broken.

Dixie Cream

I can remember a time when I would save up a few coins and go to the Dixie Cream for a few donuts before school started.  Just one dollar could get you two donuts and a milk.  It was the breakfast of champions.  Last night, I dreamed of going back  home down south and I went into the same routine that I had when I was a young girl.  The only exception is that I was not a young girl.  I was a grown women who had not been back to that town since I was eighteen.  I looked for the Dixie Cream in the place that I last remembered it.  I was certain that it was where I left it.  It was not there.  As a matter of fact, it had moved a number of times.  By the time, I found it, it was on a block that did not even exist when I lived there.  I began to think how strange things are in our memories.  People and places get frozen in our minds like snapshots.  Not only has it not changed, but it remains in our memories as a moment that stretches as a lifetime.  We go back to those old places and look for the picture in the snapshot.  I woke up and thought about how disrespectful that had been.  It was like I did not give the place the chance to change like I changed.  Why did I expect them to remain the same when the person who went there when she was a young teenager did not exist anymore as well.  I can remember when an old college friend graduated.  Her father came and gave her a gift that was more fit for a child than for an adult, but that was what he remembered her as.  She was still his little girl.  He was still stuck not realizing that all the years of neglect had painted an ancient picture.  When he came with the gift, we all gaffed and wondered how he could still think this was appropriate.  I think that is what I am doing with parts of my life that I have been longing to go back to.  I think the place only exist in my mind.  I have been back home, in reality, momentarily for funerals and quick trips.  It has changed.  Houses that I used to live in have been torn down and most of my network of people have died.  I guess, I will don a black dress and have another type of funeral.  I guess it is time to bury the memory in my memory.  It is the only place it can and will live.

I go back Kenny Chesney
http://youtu.be/MdeSLxz5TTE

 

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He doesn't lead me to brown pastures

I grew up as a gypsy of sorts.  We were always running from one place to the other.  I can remember the year when my mother put all our belongings in a plastic bag and we fled to the city of Cleveland.  Now, Cleveland is not a bad city.  My family members come from there and they live and do quite well.  It was their place of empowerment.  It was not the place of empowerment for us.  My mother could not find a job because her nursing degree was incomplete there.  She had to go back to school.  In the meantime, we lived on 83rd street in an apartment building that had seen better days.  We did not have money for anything.  There was sicknesses and disease.  It was the only Christmas where we were not able to have anything.  I don't call that a green pasture, but then again, the Lord did not lead us to that place.  That is where my mother went.  She led us to that insufficient place. 

The Lord lies me down in green pastures.  When he is in control, he takes me to places that are sufficient for me.  He does not lead me to places where I am in the cold and struggling to survive.  He does not lead me to places where I am hungry with no food to satisfy the hunger.  God lead the children of Israel to the desert, but the desert was a place of provision.  They did not have to worry about food and they did not have to worry about Pharaoh.  I know it was a desert, but God can make even your roughest place provisional.  If He lead you there, He will sustain you there.


The Lord is My Shepherd by Helen Baylor
http://youtu.be/DkUptcnCkN8

Apples and Oranges

Apples and oranges.  Aging is a beautiful process.  Once upon a time, I looked at my foot and it looked like the hundreds of cute feet that graced a pair of sandals in my second grade class.  Now, at the age of forty-one, time and hardship have shown up on my feet.  They are marked by spills I took in a pair of high heeled shoes.  They are marked by hematoma's that left me scared.  They are marked by muscles torn by falling arches.  I look down and I wonder about my feet.  These are not my feet.  I don't remember these feet.  I look at my hair and I see that this is not the full head of hair that I once had.  I look at my shape and I see bulges where they did not exist and then there is that backside.  Where did it come from?  I am being made unique simply by the fact that time has chiseled out a whole nother' person.  I am truly and not the same person that I used to be.  No one told me that when I reached this age, I would not be an apple anymore.  I would be something so different than what I once was.  I realize that I can't even go back to where I once was.  The person who enjoyed being in that place no longer lives.  Just like my body has responded to time, my emotions have as well.  Somethings, I can't cry about anymore.  I still feel grief, but I can't cry about that anymore.  Some desires that consumed my younger days, are being replaced by other desires that I never knew I would be left desiring.  My goals are different.  I am different.  It is like I woke up and realized that the person who laid down the night before must have died in her sleep.  Who is this person that I am now?  What do I want now?  Where am I going to go now?


Theme from Mahogany
http://youtu.be/c3uatcJqt54

Lawless

Luke 6:46-49

New International Version (NIV)

The Wise and Foolish Builders

⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? ⁴⁷ As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. ⁴⁸ They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Lawlessness is the state of being unrestrained by the law.  The law is a keeper.  The laws of God are the grace of God.  It is a loving God that will tell you that the stove is hot, watch you touch it anyway and then help you deal with the burn.  When he tells you that the stove is hot, he is laying down the law.  He tells us through his precepts what we can and cannot do.  He draws the line in the sand, but he never forbids us to peek over into the other realm and he certainly does not restrain us from going over.  That is the work of the law.  It only can restrain you if you allow it to.  I have stepped over that line and then ran back so quick, it looks like I never left.  I asked God, "Why did he let me do this?"and that is not the correct question.  The question is, "Why did I do this?"  Why did I choose to disobey the law and have my house floating downstream.  In the scripture, both houses were beaten by the torrent.  In the scripture, the flood came for both houses.  Only the house built on God's word stood.  Then the other question to ask is, "Why do I call him Lord, if I don't do what he says".  Is is fashionable to call him Lord?  Is it your tradition to call him Lord?  His laws can save us from a world of hurt, even without his hand.

My funny Valentine

Today, I am thinking about how hard it is to be friends with someone who is not, somewhat, your equal.  When you are walking hand in hand with someone who has enough money to solve your problem, it is difficult not to use the relationship to get your natural needs met.  There has to be a mutual understanding that I am not going to come to you for your luxuries because we are friends and the wealthy one knows that they have the right and the duty to say, “no”.  The poor have to understand that the relationship is not their answer to their problems and the rich have to understand that the poor are with you always.  You aren’t God.  In this, I find it hard to have friends who aren’t financially, emotionally, and physically somewhat equal.  When I think of God, I wonder how he has a relationship with us.  He really does have all power in his hands.  He really can change our lives.  The relationship between him and man is indeed unusual, but God makes it work.  He does not always answer prayer.  He does not have to.  To be in a relationship with him, you must understand that he has a will and it does not revolve around you.  He can say, “No” and still be in relationship with you.  We have to understand that the answer is not always in his hands.  He made us, equipped us and empowered us to solve some problems without his petition.  As with an unusual rich friend, there are parts of their world where I will not have access.  It is OK.  God has a part of his nature that is sovereignty at it’s best.  We as human beings simply will not be able to comprehend all of who he is. 

With those boundaries, I believe  I have found the secret to being in relationship with God.  It is allowing him to express his Godship without demanding that He does it solely at my beck and call.  Thus, when he says, "no", I simply agree and wait until the next time I can meet him again. Thus he remains the love of my life, sometimes near, all the time far and touchably untouched.  He is the joyous source of my greatest pain.  He makes me smile and laugh until I cry my brown eyes blue.  He is my savior who was loyal to my cause as the big bad wolf blew my house down. And I still love him. We are not equal but we walk hand in hand like the greater and lesser light.  My funny Valentine.

My funny Valentine
http://youtu.be/jvXywhJpOKs

 

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What a fool believes

Tonight I am thinking of a threat the enemy often uses against me.  He says, "If you would not have pursued ministry as a young woman, you would have been married by now".  I have heard this threat so much in my life, that I just don't want to hear it anymore.  I began to fight back.  I told the enemy that it is easy to say what could have been but the reality is that no one knows.  You don't know what your life would have been like unless God opens his mouth and tells you.  Guess what.  He didn't tell me, so an assumption is a lie on it's best day.  A fool believes in things that never were as if they existed, but I am no fool.  If I missed something and my existence was my own fault, then I take the blame.  I can't.  For every reason someone would come up with for these lonely nights, I know someone who had the exact same reason and they got married anyway.  You can't speculate about what should have been, like it really was.  Time has judged it and the moment is past.  I, like Robert Frost, stopped wondering about the road not taken years ago.  I did not pursue that path.  It did not happen for me at that time.  Notions about people that you never had in your life, are what a fool believes.



What a Fool Believes

http://youtu.be/Y7-BBADPAvE

Trade you a Barnabas for a Silas

Acts 15:36-41

New International Version (NIV)

Disagreement Between Paul and Barnabas

³⁶ Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” ³⁷ Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, ³⁸ but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. ³⁹ They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, ⁴⁰ but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. ⁴¹ He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Often times, the pain of separating is compounded by the fact there may not be an immediate replacement for the one you lost.  You can actually hold on to what is left of a relationship because you fear walking the rest of your life alone.  God knows that we are relational and are made to fellowship with mankind.  He did not create man without some sort of counterpart.  God said in the book of Genesis that is was not good for man to be alone. He then created woman and through that union he created family and through that union, he created community.  You don't have to exist by yourself when someone decides to go their separate ways.  By the shear exponential multiplication of Adam and Eve, we have towns, cities and countries full of people who can grab your hand when you need one to hold.  Now, the enemy, who is a diminisher, wants you to take your desires and put them in a fishbowl and then say that no one loves you.  Sometimes, we place ourselves in such small and insufficient places and complain that we are lonely.  You are only lonely because where you are is a lonely place.  Relationships could be one system away.  Reach out to someone and create the community that you need.  James Taylor sung a song about a woman who not only lost the relationship with her husband, but lost the community that came with it.  In the aftermath of living, someone calls to let her know that she still has someone to love her, even if it is not the one she thought would love her.  It is good to know that God always has a ram in the bush.  He truly indeed is a good savior.

God, I thank you for such a beautiful morning and a great time to realize that my life is not as empty as I previously thought it to be.  Help me to see the great and vast amount of people who are in my life everyday.  Help me to visit other systems that can be as close as across the street and as far away and the local IHOP.  God I pray that you take the blinders off and allow me to see all that are with me.  Amen.



Her Town Too
http://youtu.be/DQj2jJSfZP4

Separate Lives

My mind is turning to a place where relationships are built and others torn down.  I think about people that I have walked with and I thought of such a person who I gave everything I had to.  Every gate was open and every door unlocked.  Every secret of my being splat for this person to see with the hope that, in anger, no one would ever know.  I met this person for the first time in a long time and I found that my conversation was guarded.  I did not want to say everything.  I  did not want to talk about me and the past for those are things that I don't talk about anymore.  I built that wall that never existed between us, but I did not feel comfortable without it.  Even the tone of my voice cried,"I need some space".  The tone in return was one of a place no longer held.  That place has been void for years and if it is filled, it is no longer filled by that person.  What to do when boundaries that were once blurred become clear as crystal in a cabinet.  It is the acknowledgement that a lot of water has passed under the bridge, so much so that the world we met in is no longer the world we live in.  Everything has changed and we only exist together in memory.  The conversation was general like I was talking to a stranger on the bus.  In this, I learn, that moving on is exactly that.  No one has the right to question where I am, if you no longer are in the position to question where I am.  My gentle prodding was just to make sure everyone knew what position they were in.  When we parted, I knew that the world was definitely in different systems and that this person would return to their world and I to mine.  We would go on living but......................................separate lives.


Separate Lives
http://youtu.be/Q_4w3-CPP6E

Can you get it back for me ?

Pirates are miscreants of evil design who live off of others gain
They wait to steal your hard earned cash, and leave you in the rain
They lay in lairs and coves and hamlets that you somehow think are havens
That's when they darken the sky with guns and steal the meat like rabid ravens

Now I worked so hard to earn so little my treasure bitterly taken
My world is dark, my eyes are dim and I am visibly shaken
The power of the air has exercised his dominion be it small
How can I with such feeble hands without sin recover it all

The key to the riches once held in my grasp lay at the feet of Christ
Only he can save my beloved treasure from this evil, horrible heist
But alas, he sits on the right hand of God, his work on earth is finished
He has left the ministerial gifts to the world and it cannot be diminished.

So I went to the teacher she was at school and the prophet was in the valley
The apostle left town the night before in a ship, on the sea, in the galley.
The evangelist preached and now is gone, who stays to tend the sheep
Well that is the Pastor, the shepherd of the house, it is he, my soul he must keep

So I petition you with all the strength you can muster, and with a sorrowful sigh
Can you snatch it from the the one who snatched it from me, and placed it in the sky
Can you reclaim my gift, it was yours for the taking, and tell the devil no
Can you take this stick and beat him up and tell him where to go

For if you do the fate is sealed.  The blessed not one, nor\ two , but seven
for in the air is a gift for you, your wive, your baby and Heaven.

Want

Have you ever stopped and realized that the one thing you don't want to do is want.  I am sitting here in my room and I just don't want nothing.  Seems like those surprises that came in little boxes and rocked my world were sometimes good and sometimes bad.  They both tore my world apart.  I don't want to know what is behind door number three.  I don't want to know what is beyond the horizon.  I don't want to foreshadow the morning, I just want to be in a place where I am not wanting.  Wanting is the state of lack that I have been running from for the last six months.  The minute one thing breaks down and I get it fixed, something else takes a turn.  When I stopped and added the mishaps since July, it totals almost 5,000 dollars that I did not have.  The only resource I had was God because I just did not have it.  I did not want to be in the state of lack, but it just chased me.  What I can say about God is that God chased it.  Every where poverty turned, God had a solution and God had a plan.  It is October and I think the flood has ended.  If it has not, God is ready.  He never gets tired of intervening for me.  He is my shepherd and I shall not want.

Progressive

This morning, my mind was directed to the progressive nature of God.  I began to think about all the things that God did not give me.  He restrained his hand and something wonderful happened.  I grew up and realized that I did not want it that bad anymore.  God knows what we want and he knows the exact point at which we would no longer desire that thing anymore.  I am notorious for purchasing shoes in the moment at night when my feet are swollen and finding out in the morning that they don't fit.  I will buy shoes that looked good when when they were on the rack, but horrible when they were placed in my closet.  There were some desires I thought I would die if God did not come through for me.  I really thought that I would just die, but fifteen years later, I look back on those things and feel a bit embarrassed that I asked in the first place.  God knew that the desire was not eternal and one day I would be begging God to take back what he gave me.  I don't like being in that position.  I would rather he refuse me and allow me to grow contempt, than give it to me and watch me grow bitter.

Possession is 9/10th's of the law

     There is a law that says that a person who possesses something has an easier time proving that it is theirs.  The person who has lost possession has a difficult time proving that it belongs to him or her.  This morning, on my walk, I thought of my father.  I love him dearly but he spent most of his life in his own world.  I was his daughter, but if you gave him a twenty question trivia quiz about me, he would flunk it.  He did not know when I got the chicken pox.  He would not know my high school GPA and he would not know at what age I accepted a call to the ministry.  My father would have stuttered over the age I began to wear glasses.  If the gestapo pulled up and demanded that he prove that he was my father, he would be be hanging from the gallows.  I think about that and I think of those who take possession.  I am not saying they own it, but they certainly take possession of it.  Some people wait for someone to give it to them.  Others simply occupy the space.  I thank God for all the people in my life, who occupied the space of a father until the father I had returned.  I thank God for all the people who occupied the space of a mother until my mother was well enough to mother again.  These are the people who simply raised their hand when duty called.
      Martin Luther King, the dreamer, raised his hand and went into a battle that surely would end in his assassination.  He did not let that deter him.  He possessed his human rights at a time when he could have taken it by force, yet he chose  to simply occupy it.  He sat down at the counter and waited to be served.  He marched in front of the White House because he had a right to.  Some would say that he had no business demanding what was illegal in the south.  King possessed it anyway for possession itself is 9/10ths of the law.  I have realized that I am no longer begging to exercise my right to live my life on my own terms.  I am not going to prove to anyone that I have the right to be a minister.  I am simply going to possess it.

The Dreamer/Tribute to King
http://youtu.be/HIqb8xdKHzE

Sail On

Today, I was on the phone with a dear friend when she dropped a nuggett of truth in my lap.  She told me about Joseph from the Bible.  He had been in Egypt for years making progress, yet he never left Egypt to go find his brothers.  Joseph had so much authority that he really could have found them and made life much more difficult.  He did not seek to hurt them, nor did he seek to bless them.  The relationship that they had in the end was because they came to Egypt looking for relief from the famine.  Joseph seemed happy to see them, but he also seemed content to not seek them.  Relationships can be a struggle for me because I never know when to seek and when to let them go.  When is it time to allow someone to take a slow boat to China and bid them "farewell", as they sail on?  My social circles are always changing with people I thought would be there forever moving away and one hit wonders hitting, then you have to wonder where they are at.  In my time of need, you could not find them with a flashlight.  I guess I have to learn to be like Joseph.  Accept the fact that longevity may have been the goal, but it wasn't the manifested reality.  I guess, I should be like Joseph.  "When you need me, you will find me.  Until then, goodbye".


Sail On
http://youtu.be/w30VyJsru5E

My Irrelevant life

Today, I read in the Bible about the children of Israel as they left Egypt.  Moses told them, that the Egyptians chasing them would be seen no more.  I liked that idea.  There are three reasons why I throw things away.  First, I get rid of things that are broken beyond repair.  Next, I get rid of things that are broken but cost too much to repair.  My last thing is getting rid of things that are now irrelevant.  This is when I upgrade myself.  When I upgrade my cosmetics, I get rid of every item for which I have found a better item to replace it.  There really is a life that I used to live that I don't have to live anymore.  I don't have to be concerned with where I am going to live anymore.  Some people love to strike fear in your heart by threatening you with the life you once lived.  I was in poverty as a child.  I am not in poverty anymore.  Sometimes, I feel the twinge in my spirit of that thing sitting right outside my front door.  It's like a cool north wind that sends chills down my spine of some impending danger.  I have to remind myself that even if I return to an old place, that place would have to change and I would essentially be in a different place.  Some places I lived and the way that I had to live there, are now, irrelevant.  These Egyptians I will see, no more.

Rhetoric

This evening, I am thinking about rhetoric.  It is the artful use of combining what to say, when to say it and how to say it.  It is the things you say behind closed doors that persuade the masses that listen.  It is an art form by itself.  I began to think about the feeling of being a victim of rhetoric.  Seems like every traveling evangelist wanted to come and prophesy husbands to the churches made mostly of women wanting husbands.  They prophesied money coming for those desperately waiting on it and a way for those who had no way out.  Sometimes, I thought that it was abusive.  I think it is wrong to play on the feelings of the broken for an offering.  It is wrong to say something just to get the desired response.  Rhetoric at times can be an elaborate form of lying.  We lie to change or distort the truth.  The truth was, that sometimes, I sat in insufficient places.  These were places where my dreams would never come true.  Rhetoric decorated those slums and ghettos with glossy trinkets that were just gilded pieces of wood.  The truth chipped that gold film away and I decided that it was better to see things as they are, than to deceive my own self.  I believe there is beauty in describing an old weather beaten barn as an old weather beaten barn.  Beauty is at it's best when we have to find it in the mist of ordinary, plain humanity with not a fresh coat of paint nowhere.  A truly sad victim of rhetoric is the person who would rather hear a bunch of trumped up lies, than a single line of unadulterated truth.

Do Me Wrong Do Me Right James Taylor
http://youtu.be/3C9w9qGQixw

Nothing to wear

I am a female and subject to games played on females.  Every season, something comes out on the runway that you just have to have.  If you don’t have it, then you are out of style and God forbid that you are out of style.  In fact, you can look at all the clothes in your closet and deem them irrelevant because they don’t match what you saw on the television set.  You can feel such a sense of lack even in the midst of abundance.  Now, my life is in pieces.  I have had the privilege of spending my life in several places.  Most of them don’t flow together.  Most of the people in those places will never meet each other.  If I focus only on where I am and not where I have been, I feel this immense sense of loneliness like my life is lacking something when really it is abundant.  Recently, I began to reconnect with parts of my life that I thought were dead.  Just like that, my life had meaning and I smiled a genuine smile.  It is alright to embrace where you have been.  That is your history.  That is your life.  I don’t want to reduce my life to a handful of faces and forget the wonderful networks I left to be among a handful of faces.  I don’t want to be looking at a closet full of great clothes and feeling like I have nothing to wear.

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Not Enough Time

Today, my mind goes to a friend, not a dear friend, just a friend.  Seems like mistakes were made a plenty and now we both are in the middle of our lives.  Some of the mistakes made are things that will heal with time.  Some mistakes are things that just don’t have enough time to heal.  God would have to stretch the age and the strength into a span of lifetime that is not even realistic.  The bottom line is that some mistakes will just have to be taken to the grave.  Those are the kind of mistakes I don’t like.  I don’t like the ones that won’t be corrected until the next generation, if the next generation is even mine to ask for.  I don’t know about you, but that brings me peace.  The old folks used to say, ”It is what it is”.  It is alright just to let some wrong things stay wrong.  You add to the wrongness of situations when you meddle to make it right without the wisdom and the timing of God.  You do more damage trying to change something when it is not time for it to be changed yet your time to be with the unchanged thing has simply run out.  I have learned to leave places that are wrong and not worry about what will happen to it.  The healing of it is beyond me.  Healing it will kill me.    I know you want me to stay until things are right, but I can’t.  I don’t have time to wait until things are right.  It may never be right.  My portion on this earth is an appointed time and when my time has come, I will leave and trust your restoration to God who is certainly bigger than I.

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Pound for Pound

Today, my mind is wondering about this new initiative to get healthy food into children.  Something in me becomes offended at the sight of someone saying that my love handles come from unhealthy eating.   As I sit here well now into my forties, I recall that these extra pounds came from something else.  They came from poverty.  They came from running to the table for seconds because there was never enough in the first place.  I remember that sinking feeling when you ate, that there was not enough to really get you full.  I remember always running out of food and then I remember the hungry days.  Those were the days when we would try to make up for not having by overeating when we had it.  Food was not taken in for nourishment.  Food was the only luxury we could afford.  Fresh fruit was a goldmine conveniently placed in a can.  Food lost it’s rhythm.  Now, people fry chicken on Tuesday and eat bacon on Thursday.  What happened to a lifestyle where you did not eat like a king everyday and that was alright because Sunday was coming.  Poverty left us scratching like chickens for every grain with no restraint.  We ate for tomorrow was not promised.  It is funny how people assume your fat simply because you ate too much.

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Perfection

When I was a child, I played a game called “Perfection”.  It was a game where you had to put all the little pieces into the corresponding slots before your time ran out.  If you can manage to do that, then you reached perfection.  As I come into my forties and find that life has to be a bit slower than when I was ten years younger, “Perfection” is no longer my goal.  I am not trying to be perfect because “Perfect” is no longer attainable for me.  My hair is so thin that it now comes in cellophane bags.  Half my teeth are in a jar.  I love my girdle and most of my beauty is contained in jars and bottles.  The strength I had to go the extra mile has been shortened to the extra half a mile.  Despite the fact that perfection can no longer be a goal, I still believe that life is ultimately enjoyable.  I still lick the plate of life and drain the cup.  Paradise is still attainable even if paradise is not perfection.  The whole of my existence now, is to live the life I have until my body refuses to live anymore.  Whatever portion of my health and sanity that is left will be filled with the beauty of God and I will cherish each moment, even if my hair comes in a bag and my beauty comes in a jar.

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Stones of Rememberance

This morning, my mind is on bringing back the stones.  Joshua told the people to set up stones of remembrance.  I don't know what it is about people that when they get across the Jordan of their lives, the want to forget the God that brought them through it and everybody else.  Man would love to give himself credit where credit is not warranted.  In every arena of life, you have to understand that you never would have made it without help from someone, even if that someone is God.  It behooves us to never forget the assistance of the Lord.  I love the Catholic prayer that says, "Come to my assistance, make haste to help me".  I realize in this morning, that I am dependent on God more than you know.  I need him every hour.  I need him more than the air I breathe.  The cross I wear on my neck reminds me of how much I needed him and how much I still need him.  The cross is my stone of remembrance.

Empathy/Sympathy

King James Bible - 1 Peter 4:15

But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.

I have learned from being around misery, that it loves company.  There is nothing more depressing than sitting with someone who is clearly depressed and finding yourself so emerged in their plight and dilemma that you go through the same emotions that they are experiencing.  You begin to push back your plate and take up a lamentation.  The problem is that you can destroy the complete joy that exist in your own life.  The sun could be shining, the flowers blooming and the honey bees dancing, but you are locked inside someone else’s life where the sky is gray and doom is despair.  You have to learn to empathize and not sympathize.  When you empathize, you understand as if you are in their shoes, but you don’t take ownership of any of the pain.  In sympathizing, you own some of the pain.  You allow yourself to cry with the one who is crying.  You grieve with those who grieve.  You rejoice with one who rejoices.  Empathy comes in when the consequence is a part of a chain of choices that you did not make.  Someone who buys a home that they can’t afford will one day be faced with losing that same home.  You can empathize, but the feelings of loss that accompany the ill fated friend must be owned by them.  It was not you who made that decision.  I believe that people must learn how to bear the consequences of their own actions.  If that means that they no longer will ever be what they were in your life, than let the chips fall where they may. It pains us that some relationships end the way that they do.  They are supposed to end that way. It is the consequence of the actions of the person’s who are involved.  It is what they agreed to.  It is what they volunteered to put up with.  I will understand that you have no money, but will not step in to give you any when you decided not to work or to marry someone who would not work.  I will understand that you are sick, but I will not feel sorry for you if your illness is a part of a chain of bad choices like smoking or drugs.  I will empathize that you are in prison and that must be tough, but if it is a chain of choices, I cannot bear that for you.  That you must continuously and always bear yourself.

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Why they came

I am here sitting by the window of my room looking at the afternoon sun pouring over the parking lot.  The University is in the corner of my view.  It has been there since I was eighteen in some capacity.  It is, to this point, the greatest defining moment in my life.  Not just the town, but the whole experience of the town.  As a matter of fact, over twenty-two thousand people come here every year just for that University.  They are attracted to that place.  I realize that people come for different reasons and the reasons why they come can tell you the kind of person they are.  It also tells you the kind of place you live in.  Where I live, people come because they have some sort of intellectual prowess.  They come on probation.  If you can’t make the grade, then you will soon find yourself back where you came from.  It is a portal of which, if you can make it through it, you are granted access to a new and wonderful life.  There are those who come because they can be of service to those who come.  They take the jobs working at the University and are often offered a chance to come through the portal as well.  Some take it and some remain on the peripheral edges of attainment completely content with where they are.  They come understanding that there is a waiting list for those positions.  Those who are foolish leave.  So when I look back at the type of people who are here, I see a trend.  We are educated, hard working, cultured, and a bit uppity.  We have no ghettos and no slums.  We are generous, but we don’t give a lot of second chances.  It is a hard city to come to unless you came with an agenda and a plan.  Now, that leads me as to why people come to me.  Do they come because they see value in me?  Do they come because they see dollar signs?  Do they come because  they need my endorsement?  Do they come because they want my praise?  I ask myself, “Why are they coming to me”?  The answer is always so interesting.

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Hope Deffered

From Clarke's Commentary

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick - When once a good is discovered, want of it felt, strong desire for the possession excited, and the promise of attainment made on grounds unsuspected, so that the reality of the thing and the certainity of the promise are manifest, hope posts forward to realize the blessing. Delay in the gratification pains the mind; the increase of the delay prostrates and sickens the heart; and if delay sickens the heart, ultimate disappointment kills it. But when the thing desired, hoped for, and expected comes, it is a tree of life, עץ חיים ets chaiyim, "the tree of lives;" it comforts and invigorates both body and soul. To the tree of lives, in the midst of the gardens of paradise, how frequent are the allusions in the writings of Solomon, and in other parts of the Holy Scriptures! What deep, and perhaps yet unknown, mysteries were in this tree!

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New Great Expectations

Today, I had a student for which it was her birthday.  She was old enough to really start enjoying some freedom, yet on the eve of such a great event, she lost her freedom.  When I asked her why she chose to do what she did, she said that she wanted to spend her birthday with someone special who has not been in her life for years.  I don’t think she can even pick this person out of a lineup if her life depended on it.  While she chases the life she wanted, she was ruining the life she has.  I began to think of all the dreams and visions I had as a young woman.  I don’t regret that because I needed those dreams.  They kept me living until some cruel reality and some truth settled in.  I am not a baby and I can handle it.  I realize, that to a certain extent a great number of my dreams were specific to a place in my life that I am no longer at.  I simply outgrew them.  At one point, I dreamed of being like my peers, but then one day, I could care less about my peers.  Now, I have to let go of the life I thought I wanted to live and simply live the life I have.  I ripped open the hope chest and gave myself a bit of hope.  My goal is not to save something wonderful for a place in my life, but to enjoy something wonderful every day of my life.  And I expect to live a long, long, long time.

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Get your foot off my neck

I am thinking of freedom, which is such a loose word nowadays.  I hear it talked about like all you  have to do is be free.  I liken it to a dog chained to a fence, just inches away from his food bowl.  The person says be free and eat until you are full, but they never unhook the chain.  Someone with some sense, goes to the dog and unhooks the chain.  Now the dog can be free.  Talk is cheap. It is easier to say to someone, "be free", but you still have them in situations that enslave them to your benefit.  Freeing a person, sometimes means that you are allowing them to walk away to your detriment.  I remember being in a situation where someone in my life greatly benefitted from my poverty.  She wanted me to be free within the boundary that kept me a bit inferior to her.  She wanted me free, but not completely free, well, Jesus came and set me free.  He cut through all the red tape and set me free.  He set me free indeed.

Now

This morning, I was assessing my life and I realized that I had a lot of it in bottles.  I had tons of bottles.  I had shoes that I had not worn, purses I had not carried, and wigs still in the bag.  I had clothes with the tags on them and cd’s yet sealed.  I was acquiring life, but not utilizing life.  I was buying stuff and storing stuff.  I made the decision that I was going to die empty.  I am going to leave it all on this earth.  I can’t take none of it with me.  When I die it will be packed up and shipped off to the Goodwill.  No one will be concerned if it ends up  on the back of a queen or tramp.  It only exist for now.  I have prepared for the future, I have reconciled the past, but Lord help me live in my now moments. 

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Sharecroppers

Once upon a time, in the United States, we employed people to be sharecroppers.  The land owners who owned the land in slavery, still owned the land after slavery.  They employed the ex-slave to work the land and the profits were split between the owner and the ex-slave.  It sounded nice, but at the end of the day, the slave was so much in debt with the owner, that they never rose above it.  They just exchanged one set of chains for another set of chains.  When I became a Christian, I was snatched out of darkness and into the marvelous light.  The day after I became a Christian, some well meaning church mother gave me a list of things that I could not do in order to remain saved.  I went from one prison to another prison.  I was bound in sin and then I was bound in legalism.  The rough thing about legalism is the mind control that it has over you.  I forfeited some of my God given rights because I was working for my salvation.  I remember saints who never took a vacation, did not know how to attend a wedding, had never worn a pair of pants.  They were misfits and grinning idiots.  One day, I realized that Christ had set me free, but I was not free indeed.  Now, I am free indeed.

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In the company of good friends.

Nothing says fashion like fashion.  When I pick up that great deal, I feel like a million dollars.  Last night, I was with a group of friends and we had a ball trying on clothes and talking about hair.  I was surprised how I was lulled into a place of happiness that I had not known for years.  We were compatible friends.  We had been through some heinous times together, yet we sat like school girls while I twirled in the middle.  I felt good.  I felt comfortable.  I felt like I belonged.  I felt loved.  I liked feeling that way.  Good company always makes you feel that way.  When you leave, you feel like you have not been in a battle trying to maintain your standard amongst those who don’t have one.  When you leave, you don’t feel like you have had to explain yourself.  You leave feeling free, like someone has just cut the chains lose.  Everyone should have the someone in your life that is just good company.

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My own Vineyard

Song of Solomon 1:6

Look not upon me, because I am dark, because the sun has darkened me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.

The other day, I had a conversation with a friend about intellectual property.  What have I done or released in the earth that someone else is benefiting from, but not me.  What have I done that has made others smile, but I have yet to see the harvest.  I have long been a writer of poems, plays and other aesthetics.  I did not know about protecting your work or maintaining your copyright.  I thought that God’s gift was free and it should be freely given.  There was never an expectation that I could actually prosper from my own work.  I never thought that it could hold that value.  I now know that it can and will because I did it for someone else and they reaped the harvest.  The scripture says,”Muzzle not the ox, that treadeth out the corn.”  You cannot use the ox to grind the meal, then restrict the ox from eating the corn that falls from the stone.  There is a pervasive thought that Christians do not have the right to prosper from the work of their own hands.  I learned that the hard way, as most of my work is in the hands of someone else.  I think it is time that I keep my own vineyard.

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Fans

1

Acts 16:16-18

6Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

I have lived long enough to see many great evangelist, prophets, preachers and teachers run their course.  I am not inclined to be a fan of anyone, but some of my peers were.  I saw them buy books, by tapes and conference surf looking for that next blessing.  I watched them drop massive amounts of their money at the feet of someone they barely knew.  Seemed like they enjoyed themselves, so what is the harm.  When I examined this scripture, I saw it.  Here a young slave girl is walking behind Paul and saying the right thing and obviously enjoying herself, but she remained unchanged.  She still was a soothe-sayer.  She still was undone.  How many people are you just following because they make you feel good and not because the word they preach is making you better.

The Devil made me do it.

I am a firm believer that human beings blame much of life's mishaps on the devil.  As a matter of fact, most of the time, it is not Satan destroying your life.  It is the sum of unbridled passion and ill advice that seem to be our undoing.  We develop attractions to the very things that cause us pain.  When we hit our heads on that brick wall, there really is no one else to blame but us.  Well, if you are an evangelical christian you can always say that the devil made me do it.  I am sitting in my bed counting all the ways that I made decisions today and how they affected my life.  Tomorrow, their will be changes because I do have some say in what happens to me.  I hate giving up the power of directing my own life.  Sometimes, people have come to me looking for advice and what they really want is for me to make the decision.  Of course, I never do that.  You will stand on your own convictions because mine may not fit you.  By the same token, advice is advice.  I talk to my pastor a lot.  I like him, but he does not make my decisions for me.  I have learned that I can't hand my life to the cloth and sit back.  My pastor advices me spiritually, but he will not ever be given the power to make decisions for me.  I have to do that based on what is best for me.  At the end of the day, he won't be to blame for whatever I get into and that is the truth.

The Rainbow Connection

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that
and someone believed it,
and look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing?
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

All of us under its spell,
we know that it's probably magic....

Have you been half asleep
and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

Look Up

THE BUZZARD:

If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8
feet and is entirely open at the top, the
bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will
be an absolute prisoner. The reason is
That a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground
with a Run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space
to run, as is its habit, It will not even
attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner
for life in a small jail with no top.


THE BAT:

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a
remarkable nimble creature in the air,
cannot take off from a level place.
If it is placed on the floor or flat
ground, all it can do is shuffle about
helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it
reaches some slight elevation from which it can
throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it
takes off like a flash.

THE BUMBLEBEE:

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will
be there until it dies, unless it is taken out.
It never sees the means of escape at the
top, but persists in trying to find some way out
through the sides near the bottom.. It
will seek a way where none exists, until it
completely destroys itself..

PEOPLE:

In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and
the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our
problems and frustrations, never realizing that
all we have to do is look up! That's the
Answer, the escape route and the solution to any problem! Just look up.

Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, But faith looks up!

Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly and
trust in our Creator who loves us.

 

Belief

There is a simple reason as to why magical things happen.  They happen because we believe magical things can happen.  Belief in the unbelievable can emerge from the most cynical of people if it follows a progression.  Abraham received the word that he was going to receive a child.  That was he seed planted by God.  Before this, Abraham had made a son out of a steward.  In Abraham’s mind, this was a done deal.  There was no need in begging whatever god he served in Ur for what was not going to happen.  He and Sarai were already old.  What was the possibility that something truly wonderful and fulfilling happening to him in his old age. God then comes and plants a seed.  The seed takes root and it is something that drives Abraham to do the unthinkable.  He jumps up and leaves everyone he knows and strikes out for a place with no destination.  He goes based on the belief, that God will give him something magical and wonderful in due season.  Beliefs begin as seeds until they grow being watered by bits of evidence you collect along the way until it becomes an unmovable solid thing.  It’s roots are so deep in your mind that no matter how you try to root it out and rebuke it to hell, it stays.  I often have had those moments.  I had no other aspiration in life other than to get a job and live in the “white folks” neighborhood.  I did not strike out to become what I have become.  Along the way, someone came along and planted a seed.  That seed, I could not shake.  I have tried to walk away and act like it was all a figment of my imagination, but it did not work.  It is here and whether it is fulfilled or not, it won’t move.  Maybe that is what God wanted in the first place.

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The Rainbow Connection, The Swamp

This song was written for the “Muppet Movie” in 1979 and it conveys a feeling of destiny, but it does not start that way.  He is singing this song with a banjo in a swamp.  None of what he desires, exist in the swamp.  It is a lonely place, not because there are no other animals there, but because there is no one else like him.  He has dreams that are different than your normal ordinary frog.  He begins to sing about rainbows being visions, but only illusions not understanding that he is in the place where a rainbow is the likely thing to happen.  Rainbows need water and sunshine and air.  Add in some greenery and you are in a swamp.  The greenery sustains you in this wonderful atmosphere that many would call a “hot mess”.  Make you wonder why God would choose this type of climate to perform the greatest of miracles.  Kermit says, “Someday we will find it, the rainbow connection”.  The rainbow connection is from the old myth that if you see a rainbow and follow it to the end, there is something wonderful like a pot of gold.  It represents the optimism in life that if I keep searching and keep looking that something truly wonderful is at the end of the journey.  Lovers receive their loved ones, dreamers realize their dreams and me, I receive the just fruits of my labor of loving and waiting and looking.  The rainbow connection is the manifestation of a longing finally fulfilled.

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Eternal optimist

Children are eternal optimist.  It doesn’t matter if you tell them that you know for sure that Santa is not real, they still believe it anyway.  I have seen it happen time after time at the onset of puberty.  They look around and see that the life they wanted to live is not the life that was handed to them.  The surliness that sours the attitude becomes contagious and infectious and life takes on a different meaning.  They dress in black, read sad poems and listen to sad songs trying to express the depression that sets after the bubble is broken.  Jesus said that we have to remain little children.  Why?  Because he really can leap tall buildings in a single bound, he really is faster than a speeding bullet and he truly is stronger than a locomotive.  He possesses super powers, he is unique and special.  He can do the unusual and we should not forget it.  Cynical adults may sit you down to tell you about the facts of life, but stop them with they begin to say what God can and cannot do.  The “cannot “ part only refers to sinning and lying.  Everything else is fair game.

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Pain killer

The day after my birthday, the world lost one of the greatest voices to reign in the pop arena.  The details of her death are still sketchy and I just hope that there was no foul play.  It brings to light the subject of dysfunction and the knowledge that money and fame only deal with the outside of a person.  It does not do deal with the inside of a person.  When I was younger, I did not understand self destructive behavior.  It took me a minute to realize that failure is not a goal, it is simply  and outcome.  People don’t sit down and decide to become drug addicts and alcoholics.  They participate in the activity for another purpose and addiction is the by product.  Alcohol and drugs are basically pain killers.  They momentarily make you feel good about your life.  They calm the anxiety and ease the inhibitions.  You talk better when you are high, you feel good about your life when you are high, and you don’t have to face reality when you are high.  That is the attraction of addiction.  It makes you feel better and people like feeling better at any cost.  Now this is where I introduce Jesus, because Jesus truly takes away the pain.  He deals with the pain from the point of where the pain started.  When he is done, the by product of his love, is that you can talk about the pain, you can teach about the pain, but you are no longer in pain.  You can sit and spill your guts in your ministry groups and at some point, bust out laughing.  Yes, I have laughed at what I used to cry at.  I don’t cry anymore, because there is no more pain.

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The way of the snake upon the stone

I received a great Christmas gift from one of my students.  It was a small amethyst stone with a snake on it.  There is a scripture in the Bible that speaks of the snake upon the stone.  You see, when a snake is in the sand or the dirt, he leaves his imprint.  The sand bears witness that the snake was there.  The stone does not bear witness that the snake was ever there.  The snake can lay on the stone, bite the stone and crawl on the stone, but when he gets done, you will not be able to tell.  That is how I feel about victimization.  I prayed that God deal with me so good, that no one would ever know what I went to.  He hid the dysfunction so well, that many people have to ask me because I don't carry myself like what I went through.  It was never my intention to look like what I been through.  I don't mind that people think I am rich or that they think my life was easy.  I had no intention of letting them in on my dark places.  Those places are private and the door is shut.  I have found that you can't heal with the door open.  Sometimes, you have to stop feeding the thought of the issue as well as the issue.  I hope you pray that you find a way to get in touch with the Lord and tell him to fix you so good, you won't be able to tell that you were broke.

He Knows

Today, I found myself just overwhelmed by a schedule that just would not end.  It was not a bad day, it just was a busy day.  As a matter of fact, it is a busy time.  It was busy in the natural and busy in the spirit.  I just realized that all the time that God was being silent in my world, he was working overtime somewhere else and that somewhere else is having a great affect on me now.  Just when I get a feeling like settling into where I am, he tells me that there is something coming over the horizon.  When I look, he has not lied.  You can never underestimate God.  You simply have to follow him and keep following even if you have no clue where you are going to end up.  We have to realize that God works from the end to the beginning.  He already knows the next step you are going to take and the next step after that.  He understands that you are completely ignorant unless he reveals it to you.  The problem is that revealing it to us may mess up the plan.  Instead, he gives us a calm reassurance that he is conducting the train and it will reach it's destination.

Fresh eyes

When I was young, I could sense my mother's insecurities and mind boggling flaws.  It was like a slow revelation.  The kind of revelation you get when you eat chili made with peppers that give off a latent heat.  You know something is coming, you just don't know when.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not into peers, just family.  Once, I was able to visit friends and see how their mothers cooked breakfast, I knew that she had missed the mark something terrible.  I thought that this was going to go away, but the years have passed and I discover something new everyday.  Age does that to you.  I accept that she should have died young and that her way should have been hard.  There was really no other choice but that.  The beauty of youth is that it is eternally optimistic.  The beauty of wisdom is that it is eternal, period.  It unveils the world slowly and sweetly.  By the time you see the ugly and the unlovely, you are able to handle ugly and unlovely.  Each year brings fresh eyes and new interpretation.  The old folks said, that I would understand it better by and by.   I did.

Nighttime messages.

I often hear such wonderful messages in church.  They are in the most perfect of situations.  The birds are chirping.  The sun is shining and it is in the most positive part of my day.  You can tell me just about anything in the morning.  Most of the time, I wait to receive bad news in the morning.  It is a different type of message.  It is a message of hope that is readily received, but not without understanding.  When I go home, I then have to preach another message.  This is the one that gets you through the night when all of the metaphors and similes are useless.  The nighttime is not the time of talk about promise it is a time of survival.  We crawl down to the base of our desires and hold onto our integrity until the sun shines again. 

               Job knew the God of the sunshine.  That God blessed him indeed with ten children, property, and riches.  In that time, Job offered sacrifices to keep his blessing.  Then the enemy was given some reign in his life and all that he wanted to be kept was gone.  There was no need praying for children who were dead, cattle that was stolen or camels that were taken away.  When the enemy took all he had, he then began to take his health.  This was a different type of season and it called for a different type of prayer.  Job was then talking to God differently.  He was trying to maintain the only thing he had left and that was his integrity.  The only thing he had left to do was curse God and die. 

               His friends came and pushed the very button you don’t want pushed in the nighttime.  They blamed the whole thing on him.  They told him that the very reason why he was not blessed, was that he had done something wrong.  Once you get Job to admit to something he did not do, it would then be easier for  him to take the next step and sin.  Job was holding on to the only thing he ever had.  Nighttime messages are messages that keep you from losing your integrity.  It is not about turning around three times for a turn around in your life.  It is not about stepping out into a new dispensation.  It is about surviving with the only thing you have left.  Your integrity.

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