Potted Meat

When I was a child, my mother often took me to the store for a treat.  She bought potted meat, saltine crackers and Nehi soda.  Boy, we sat in front of the television and we ate like we were kings and queens.  When I got older, I loved to eat potted meat sandwiches using white bread.  One day, I found out what was in potted meat and I decided that it was not good for me.  I still have the taste for potted meat, but I refuse to eat potted meat again.  There are some things in my life that I have a taste for.  I could live off of that substance for the rest of my life, if I had to.  I know how to live if your water gets shut off.  I know how to live without electricity.  I know how to eat off of ten dollars for a week.  I can live with a drug addict and an alcoholic without it affecting me.  That  was the life I lead as a child and I mastered getting out of it by mastering it, but just like the potted meat, I refuse to live like that anymore.  Even though I know how to live with a drug addict, I refuse to live with a drug addict.  Even though I know how to make it off of ten dollars, I refuse to eat cheap.  At this point in my life, what I mastered to get here is irrelevant.  I am on a different plane and on a different level.  I am not trying to live a "potted meat" life for the rest of my life.  I deserve more than that and you do to.  You may have some questionable friends whom you actually get along with, but they are not the best people to be around.  I have relatives I dearly love, who I will gladly send to jail.  I just refuse to live beneath my privilege even if I mastered living beneath my privilege.

Your History is all you have

Today, my thoughts about perpetualness.  I am thinking about perpetualness a lot lately.  It is the only history that we will leave in the earth.  The only way that we will be able to be discerned from the other masses of flesh is by the deeds we do in our name.  Those things alone will define us.  I have learned to forget what I hear you saying because words are simply not needed.  Give me a list of your greatest accomplishments and I will know who you are.  I have always stated that I never wanted just a man.  I have always wanted a great man in his greatness.  For this, I don't need to hear your rap.  Let me know which college you graduated from.  Introduce me to your children or the lack thereof.  Tell me how many times you have been married.  If you dare, reveal if you own your home.  Your accomplishments will tell me your history and that speaks louder than words.  In Christendom, we feel that the blood of Jesus will somehow magicly erase your history because it erases your sins.  I have heard it preached that God wipes the slate clean.  Does he?  If your history is still there, then there is something on the slate.

Cinderella Part 5

When Cinderella arrived at the ball, she recognized the prince, but understood that it would be worthless if he did not recognize her.  He did recognize her and they danced the entire night.  Not only did the prince recognize her, but so did the stepmother.  She ordered Cinderella home.  While on her way out of the door, her stepmother attacked her.  She ripped her dress into shreds while the palace guards tried to restrain her.  She grabbed for locks of Cinderella’s hair and then she pushed her into a rose bush of thorns.  The attack was so vicious that God rescued Cinderella by translating her back to her home in the safety of her kitchen.  The only thing left in the attack was a few patches of her dress, strands of hair ripped from her head and one glass slipper cracked at the heel.  The Prince was livid and followed the wicked stepmother back to her home to chastise her.  When he arrived, the wicked stepmother barred the door with her body.  The prince did not want to hit a woman so he sat in his carriage, hoping to wear the old woman out.  The prince tried again to gain entry under the auspices of returning the slipper.  It would not be gentlemanly to do so.  The wicked stepmother took the slipper and threw it into the rose bushes, but it reflected from the stone in the cottage.  The shards of glass exploded with one small sliver slicing her skin and piercing her heart.  Her wicked heart failed for it had been evil a very long time.  When she lay still and cold, the prince entered the cottage and rescued the young maiden.  They were married and the scene was exactly like the one they had dreamed of.  Ironically, her life resembled the life she led before her father passed away.  She had someone to watch over her and take care of her.  All she had to do all day long, was run barefoot through the tulips.

Cinderella Retold part 4

In her dreams at night, Cinderella saw a prince.  In the dreams, he came with all of his servants and lifted her from the place of misery.  It was the only thing that she had to keep her alive.  In another part of the Kingdom, there was a prince who had fallen in love with a princess he saw in his dreams.  In the season given to him for marriage, he decided to have a ball and invite all the available maidens in the kingdom.  He was determined to find the woman of his dreams or better said, the woman in his dreams.  The ball was to be a fabulous affair and the stepsisters were eligible to go.  They spent six months buying fabric and growing their hair and perfuming their skin.  The stepmother herself was preparing to chaperon and she had a gown made of pure silk imported from far away.  The only one who could not go was Cinderella.  Now, Cinderella did not know that the Prince’s dream was by divine intervention.  She did not know that her dream was divine intervention.  It was the will of God for her life to change and the season had come.  When the stepmother and stepsisters went to the ball, Cinderella went to cry in the rose garden.  As she began to pray she was transfigured by the power of God to the Royal castle dressed in fine robes of silk and taffeta.  She had clean hair and nails and she smelled of honeysuckle roses.  On her feet, she saw a exquisite pair of glass slippers.

God will make a way out of no way when your season has come.

Cinderella Retold Part 3

When the father was securely in the ground, the wicked stepmother set out to finish her task.  She attempted to feed the young maiden poisonous mushrooms, but the Lord had made her intolerable to the taste.  She vomited every bite and lived.  Then the wicked stepmother set her to go pick wildflowers for the house in the middle of the woods.  She ordered the woodsman to kill her there, but he was warned of the Lord to disobey her or face the fires of Hades.  She then tried to marry her off to a peasant who lived on their land, but before the stepmother could end the matter, the young man disappeared.  Well, the stepmother decided that she would make the maiden a servant and keep her in the kitchen sweeping cinders from the hearth.  Except for the woman who brought their fresh meat in the morning, no one knew that the young maiden was still alive, for the stepsisters had sent the rumor that she had passed of a fever.  They called her Cinderella, but in her heart, she accepted none of it.

Life tries it’s best to change you from what you were to what they want you to be.  You have to remember what you were before life got a hold of you to try and change your name.  Remember that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, even if you don’t look like it.  My Pastor always says, "You are not defined by what happened to you."

Cinderella Retold part 2

God looked down upon his creation and saw that it was good.  He also saw the winds of change coming and he knew that the maiden would be saddened.  God was not going to allow the winds and the rains to destroy what he had made so beautiful.  The beginning of her troubles came when her father began to grow weary of being lonely and sought to find a wife.  While at the common market place, he glanced upon a woman who was fair and willing.  They married that very day and with this woman, came her daughters.  They moved into the cottage in the woods and life was still good.  It was so good that the father became a rich man.  While he was becoming a rich man, his new wife was plotting his demise.  She was beautiful, but greedy.  Had the father waited for a suitable spouse, he may have survived until old age, but he rushed .  When he became a millionaire, his fair wife made him a meal with poisonous mushrooms.  He died in the night and by the morning, the fair maiden was moved to a small cot in the kitchen and her clothes replaced with rags.

God acts and Satan counteracts.  We have to remember that Satan can not invent anything, he only can try to taint what God has done.  What we have to remember about God is that he is infinite.  His works and his ways can only be altered permanently by him.  Do not worry about the winds of your life changing against you.  Just as you were once in a beautiful place, just wait and keep praying.  You will be there again.

Cinderella Retold

Once upon a time, in a far away kingdom, the grace of God smiled down on a young maiden.  She was placed in a lovely home with rose bushes to the north and a bountiful garden to the south.  Her mother went to paradise upon her birth, but the Lord left her entrusted to a loving father.  He supplied her every need so that the maiden spent most of her time running barefoot through the tulips and enjoying her estate.  She often thought of her fortune and how great her life was.  In her quiet time, she prayed and asked God to bless her father and her.  She prayed prayers of thanksgiving for the mercy of God who had been so benevolent to her.

God never creates anything in destruction.  God made a beautiful world with plenty of food and no worries.  He placed us in a beautiful place.  Praise God for such wonderful beginnings for humanity.