spiritual hearing

is just like physical hearing. the closer you get to whoever you're listening to, the better you can hear them.

talking to a friend about hearing God speak to us. i've only ever heard God speak to me in an audible voice once, the 2nd day i went to live in costa rica when He said "but only for one day."

yesterday He spoke to me through His Holy Spirit, putting thoughts into my head. i was reconciling accounts and it wasn't balancing. for the life of me i could not figure out why. i knew it was there but i didn't know how to account for it. then a name came to me from 4 months ago and i knew i had the answer. i don't remember a name from someone i met face to face yesterday, never mind a name that came across my desk 4 months ago. i was praising and thanking God because i knew it was from Him.

once i reconciled that account i was looking at another one and again i was at a loss as to why it wasn't working. i was asking God to help me cuz i didn't have a clue. then a figure came into my head and i knew i had the answer. again it was something that happened once months ago. i couldn't tell you anything from a week ago never mind several months ago. again i was praising and thanking God because i knew it was from Him.

i can watch the same movie over and over again if it's a good movie and also because i forget how it goes. last night i started watching a movie from the beginning that i had started watching 1/2 way through last week. normally i would just keep watching it but instead i turned the tv off and went on the computer. and that's weird because normally i would've just watched something else. when i went on-line i found that dany (from costa rica) was on-line and i haven't talked to him on-line for months. we talked for 2 1/4 hours. again thanking and praising God.

we don't have to hear an audible voice to hear Him.

ok i'm bored

while you are all out going for walks or drives enjoying the beautiful sunshine, i'm sitting here wishing i was out there.

our beloved pastor

these little piggies went to market

i am the eggman..

the original 4 wheeler

now that's a rear view mirror

fish & chips anyone?

how to stay cool on a hot day

where's his red flag?

to market

to market

hula hoop anyone?

how many can you get on your bike?

non-hodgkins follicular lymphoma

several people have asked what the results were of all the tests that i've had so here it is in a nutshell.

I have been diagnosed with low grade Non-Hodgkins Follicular Lymphoma. It's similar to diabetes in that there is treatment but there is no cure. It's cancer of the blood.

Right now I don't have too many other symptoms so they don't recommend treatment. I will be tested & checked every 3 months & when I start getting other symptoms they'll start chemo.

life expectancy is 7 – 10 years but I could get hit by a truck tomorrow or the Lord could come back and we’d all be home in 10 years. we exist by the will of a perfect God so who are we to question His perfect will. we live according to His will, His timetable not man's so who is man to say we will go here or there, do this or that, or live or die at a given time.

life is a test - God is testing each one of us all the time. i think how we respond to each test is how we grow, or not, into the godly person He wants us to be.

i was having such a pity party the day i finally believed in Christ. my life is so totally different now. rom 8:28 we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. so if His perfect plan, His purpose, is for me to have lymphoma, who am i to say otherwise.

life is uncertain - eat dessert first

lying

have you ever thought about it? how often you do it? how 'natural' it is. you don't mean to but you do it without even thinking about it. someone asks you what you're doing on a certain day and you say you're busy when you're not. the words are out of your mouth before your brain's engaged.

the bible tells us that liars will not enter heaven.

last week when i went for surgery i was asked where i would be staying or if someone would be staying with me. i said i would be at home by myself. i was told i had to have someone with me or they wouldn't do the surgery. i had planned to have this surgery 3 years ago and have been waiting for it for the past year since coming back from costa rica. there was no way i was going to wait any longer. i phoned the lady that had driven me to the hospital (who had on the way there asked me if i needed someone to stay with me & i said no) and told her i needed a babysitter and asked if she wanted to spend the night at my house or me at her house. she said we'd work something out so i told the nurse that i had a babysitter & she said they'd proceed. i lied. i out and out lied. i had no intention of not sleeping in my own bed. for as much as i intentinally lied at the time i wasn't even thinking about it that it was a sin. i was only thinking i had to have the surgery, i didn't want to wait more months.

well i didn't, sleep that is. besides feeling so sick from the medication i was convicted (heartsick) about lying. i thought about how God says that liars won't enter heaven. oh man was i convicted. all i had thought about (me) was wanting the surgery instead of thinking about what God feels and thinks about liars. i had not considered that i was putting my soul in jeopardy. but i tell ya. i've thought a lot about it since.

someone asked me what i was doing on friday night. i'm busy was out of my mouth so fast i would've been caught in a lie if asked what i was doing, or had to lie again (then it would've been intentional) to cover up the first one. i don't know why i said it. it literally was out of my mouth before i had time to think about it. when i realized that i wondered how many (not if but how many) other times i've lied like that. it was so automatic i could hardly believe it, how easy it was and how 'natural' it was. it is the sinful nature in me that causes me to do things that i don't want to do.

a few months ago my secret sister gave me a card saying she thinks i'm a woman in whom God is well pleased. i kept that card & it sits right beside my monitor. i want to be that woman in whom God is well pleased. i have a long way to go.

what a whiner!!!

ever since complaining about my hospital stay i've been thinking - what a whiner! that we have free medical care is more than most of the world's population.

i read the drug information on the pain rx they gave me and it says take with food. in the hospital they gave me the drug but didn't give me any food to take with it. and i thought how millions go without food daily. and i thought of millions of victims of war and disease who are suffering without any pain medication. i thought of kids stepping on land mines and getting their legs blown off, or worse, and having no medical attention at all.

i thought of others and i felt petty. we are a society of self-absorbed whiners.

we eat too much, we over-indulge ourselves, we buy the latest fashions, we buy all the latest toys, we are so not living the way Jesus wants us to. we are a spoiled, self-indulgent society expecting that the world owes us everything.

the rich ruler wanted eternal life, Jesus told him to sell everything & give to the poor and follow Him. he couldn't follow Jesus because he wanted everything he had, he wasn't willing to give it up. are you truly following Jesus or are you hoarding your money?

are you so concerned about your own needs, totally forgetting about the greater needs of others?

when Jesus returns will He say to you come in with Him or depart from Him? will He spit you out because your love for Him is only lukewarm?

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

are you living for Him? or are you living for yourself? do you live to please Him? or are you living to please yourself?

lymphoma

months ago it was suggested i might have anything from mono to lymphoma. i thought ok whatever. lymphoma was confirmed and i thought ok whatever.

before i knew anything about it i just thought lymphoma was cancer and people get sick from cancer. some people die from it. some people are afraid of dying. when i expressed to a friend that if i had lymphoma i wasn't afraid of dying (thinking cancer, which is sometimes fatal) she told me i was being selfish. she needed me how could i think of leaving (dying) her.

we are not in control. do we fear dying because we fear losing control? if we fear anything at all it is because we have not surrendered to God. God is in control and He is going to do what He has already determined to do. He knows the plans He has for you. trust in Him and He will be with you whatever you go through.

as for me i feel great and wonder if there's been a mistake.

msa hospital

if you have to go to a hospital i hope you can go to another one. i went for pre-op blood work & an eeg on thursday. i enquired about getting crutches thinking i would go next door & rent them but admitting told me they would give them to me upstairs after the surgery. when i saw the nurse she put the bp cuff on then she sat down. when it was finished she told me to take it off. when i had the eeg the tech apologized for swearing and then continued swearing a couple more times. the gown she gave me was so wrinkled it looked like it had been balled up soaking wet. she had to do the eeg a second time cuz she was in a hurry to get off work & she pulled the cords off before it was finished. there was a dirty dish beside the machine and no place to put my clothes except on top of a pile of towels.

yesterday when i had the surgery i was given a gown that i had to pull apart as it was stuck together with a melted heart monitor thing. when i pulled it around me i saw that it was stuck together with a gross blob of something that looked like melted rubber cement. they couldn't get the needle in properly and had to do it again. and i'm not sure what they gave me for pain but i'm pretty sure it was the one thing i told them i can't take cuz i've been sick ever since. when i was ready to go i asked for the crutches & they said they don't have them there. i told them i had enquired about them the day before & was told they would be giving me a pair. no they couldn't have told me that because they don't have them there. why would i think it would be so much easier to get a pair while i was still able to walk properly. they told me i couldn't get my foot wet for 2 weeks. like how am i going to do that in bc in the winter hobbling on some little flat thing. i left the hospital feeling a heck of a lot worse than when i went in & none of it had to do with the surgery on my foot. on a scale of 1 to 10 msa scores zero.

My Utmost for His Highest.

". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed . . . ." We will all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus the areas of our lives He has asked us to yield to Him. It’s as if Paul were saying, "My determined purpose is to be my utmost for His highest— my best for His glory." To reach that level of determination is a matter of the will, not of debate or of reasoning. It is absolute and irrevocable surrender of the will at that point. An undue amount of thought and consideration for ourselves is what keeps us from making that decision, although we cover it up with the pretense that it is others we are considering. When we think seriously about what it will cost others if we obey the call of Jesus, we tell God He doesn’t know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point— He does know. Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only— my utmost for His highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and Him alone.

My Unstoppable Determination for His Holiness. "Whether it means life or death-it makes no difference!" (see Philippians 1:21). Paul was determined that nothing would stop him from doing exactly what God wanted. But before we choose to follow God’s will, a crisis must develop in our lives. This happens because we tend to be unresponsive to God’s gentler nudges. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate. He then providentially produces a crisis where we have to decide— for or against. That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives. If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably.

my earnest expectation...

that... Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death" —Philippians 1:20