Happy until

Denial is a lifestyle.  I once met a woman who lived a glorious life in denial.  She told me that she wanted a new home.  I agreed that she should have a new home.  Then she began to buy things for her new home.  She bought china for her new home and comforters for her new home and light bulbs for her new home and beds for her new home.  When I looked at the state of her present home.  She had no good china, she had no good beds, her comforters were rags and you couldn't find a light bulb no where.  She was living this impoverished life trying to save and wait for something better to come into her life.  That is such a dangerous place to be.  No one should live like a pauper because one day they will live like a prince.  Better does have levels.  You may not have the house, but ask God how to enjoy living in the apartment.  How do I enjoy being single until I am married?  How do I enjoy being at a minimum wage job until I get a salaried position with benefits.  You can be happy until happily ever after happens for you.

Waiting is an art form.

The art of waiting is all about the attitude.  I have had to learn the art of waiting.  I don't call it waiting, I call it occupying.  Waiting is the art of continuing to feed the desire of what you want while filling it with smaller desires that you don't have to wait for.  I have learned that multi-tasking is not real.  You can't do two things at one time, but you can start something and occupy the waiting time by doing something else.  It makes the wait palatable.  It takes the sting out of waiting.  You have not left your desire, you have just decided to fulfill other desires until your day has come.  I call this an art form because many people cannot wait.  Because they cannot wait, they take inferior things and live inferior lives and are then forced to lie.  "Look at my wonderful inferior thing.  Isn't it great".  How much more fulfilled could you have been if you had learned to wait.

Wet N Wild

You would be surprised at the things that brought me comfort.  When I was about thirteen, I found a dollar somewhere and I went up to P.N. Hersch and bought a tube of orange lipstick.  My mother did not mind, I was in the seventh grade.  You couldn't imagine how that ninety-nine cent tube of lipstick made me feel.  I knew I was smart, but most folks did not call me pretty.  I was overweight for my age and I was poor.  I didn't stop there.  I then went to the 3D discount store and bought earrings for a dollar.  I thought I was a queen with my earrings.  Then I bought perfume.  I loved perfume.  You couldn't tell me nothing when I had on my Verve'.  Now, most of the in crowd were wearing Giorgio perfume and carrying Espirit bags, but I could not afford to.  They had so much more than I but I had something they did not have.  I had the ability to be happy with small things.  I was just as happy eating a pickle than eating at Ponderosa.  I had to remind myself of that happiness.  Now, I do so by buying an ample supply of the cheap stuff that makes me smile.  So, I have a ton of dollar makeup in crazy shades.  I still buy Wet n Wild lipstick for a dollar.  I keep earrings around that I buy for a dollar.  Among my coveted fragrances is a bottle of Jovan Gardenia, Primo perfume, and Sand and Sable.  I have been rocking that since college.  God has blessed, so I have lipsticks that are fifteen times the cost of Wet n Wild and my fragrances have been on the pricey side.  It is good to know that I can enjoy them or I can enjoy the smell of a great cheap soap.

My healing place

There are very few healing places left in the world.  I mean, those places where the diseased, the damaged and the disserted can sit down with a good friend.  I have a place like that.  It's the kind of place where people stop and greet one another and ask about where who you belong to.  I loved it because it took care of me when I belonged to no one.  I lived in a land of lawlessness with unlawful people who only comfortable in unlawful places.  You could trust no one.  You shouldn't trust anyone.  I did not trust at all.  When I came to the healing place, the first person I met was one that I could trust.  I waited for the other shoe to drop, but it didn't.  No one was trying to hurt me.  I liked that.  Every now and then, I wear orange and black and think of that place.  I try to remember the taste of the fried mushrooms or the chicken fried with cornmeal.  I stop and try to remember where I bought my first lipstick and where I met God.  Yep, everyone needs a healing place.

Sometimes, I surprise myself.

I am near sighted.  I don't know why I am but I just am.  I take a look at what is around me and I try to make sound decisions without acknowledging that I serve a mighty God who can intervene at anytime.  I spent far too much time fighting battles with such meagerness that I looked like an ant fighting a lion.  It never dawned on me that God was in the battle with me.  I never connected that somewhere down the line, I disconnected.  I had become a deist.  God was supreme, but he was too busy to come of his throne to see about me.  To make matters worse, I find that he was not only with me, but he orchestrated the situation so that I win.  Who can't win a fixed fight. 

Always full

God is bigger than where you are.  My mother was one of the most influential people in my life.  We lived in a very limited system and she always encouraged me to go and see what opportunities lay in other places.  It is because of her that I found an eclectic nature in Christ.  I eat from a variety of tables and am fed continuously.  I never starve because I am not a picky eater.  How do you starve in the house of bread?  You starve by never getting outside your own four walls.  Why sit there and die?

Don't Linger

Luke 24

He Is Risen

24 Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them,^[a] came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. ² But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. ³ Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ And it happened, as they were greatly^[b] perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. ⁵ Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, ⁷ saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”

 

It is a flaw in my character to linger a bit long at the tomb.  You try to tell people what happened to you and they don't want to believe it.  For their own selfish reasons, they don't want to believe it.  They would rather believe that all is well and hide their heads in the sand.  I asked myself, "How long are you going to remain at the tomb trying to convince them of their folly"?  How long are you going to keep going over the same story like they did not hear it the first time.  Shake the dust from your feet and put on your white clothes.  Lingering at the tomb does not make you a more competent spiritual person.  It does not make you more believable, it just irritates those who won't believe you anyway.  Allow your grave clothes to speak for you.  Rise above the tomb and excel above the grave dug for you.  In your ascended place, they will come for glory, they always do, and when the come for glory, then they will be a captive audience.  At this time, the story can be told.  This time, they will listen.  You can't tell it from the tomb.  They can ignore a tomb.  They can't ignore success.