December 31, 2011 Greetings My Friend, It is the end of the year once again. My thoughts turn reflective once more and of course I ponder my faith journey this past year. “Am I closer to God at the end of the year than I was at the start of the year?” That is the process I use now instead of New Year’s resolutions. We’ve moved again. Well we moved in December of 2010 and to tell you the truth I hope to never move again. ENOUGH already! We love our new home and it has many changes to it already. We knew it would be a few years before our home is the way we want it. I love the settling down process. I feel very much a part of this community which is wonderful. I love being involved in things like at the thrift store, volunteering at church and even a woman’s Bible study. Right now though I am taking a friend to the cancer center as she goes through radiation and I have suspended most of my activities. For me the sense of being retired has been a delayed process. Most recently retired people state they feel they are on vacation for quite some time. Just getting back to a level playing field has been a challenge. There was the learning how to deal with arthritis and hypoglycemia and then a blow up with a loved one and then two moves in two years , let me say just being retired hasn’t been the cake walk I thought it would be. Now though retirement is starting to settle nicely. Am I closer to God than I was at the start of the year? I believe I am. I know I had a real rough patch in the spring around Mother’s Day. In recent years I have often felt not sure of my mothering. This year for some reason I felt even more so depressed. I got a phone call and connected deeply with my child and that helped me a ton. Right after that my class reunion was brought up. I have never gone and thought maybe I would go this year. It would be interesting to see people that I went to high school with who now are grandparents etc. Then I started thinking….you know thinking can get you into trouble. In this case though I think it was good for me to think out the consequences of going. For me going might mean running into my ex. My ex likes to chat with me like we are good friends. Seeing him usually is highly uncomfortable for me. I see the angry man he once was. I really don’t want to go down memory lane with him. Those are memories I am trying to let go of so the overly friendly chats are a bit over bearing. All of this seemed to send me spiraling down into an abyss. Trying to find steady ground was very difficult. I went to prayer. I am always amazed when God comforts me and this time was no exception. I spent an afternoon pouring my heart out to God. He placed answers on my heart that astound me even now. I saw things I had not seen before. One of the things I do when I am at a function with my ex and he wants to be all friendly is put on a stone face. I answer him in short answers. It is a way of protecting me. Many times he will move onto junior and talk to him. That is fine with me. I’d rather he would say ‘hi’ and move on. I don’t want a scene but I don’t want to be best friends either. God showed me how my ex was using this stone face action of mine as a way for others to take his side. It was kind of like ‘wow, can’t she be nice after all these years?’ Right after showing me this God seemed to say that it is ok. I need to do what I need to do to protect myself. He also pointed out that it is to God that I need to direct my energy to. If I am in God, then life will go easier. I may not walk away from a struggle but God will walk me through the struggle. That is a huge comfort to me. My counselor suggested that I journal on line, in my e-mail on notepad. For the longest time writing in long hand was the way I could process. There was something about seeing the pages with the indents from writing on them that helped me. Now though journaling on the computer helps me and I am journaling almost every day again and I feel so much better. Some days I talk about all the activity I’m going through and other days I talk about what is on my heart and troubling me. It helps me a whole lot. I have learned with Junior how to be patient. He will finish his projects. He will take a long time to finish because many times he will tear something out several times before he gets it the way he wants it. Junior is learning as he goes as well. So our house is turning into a home and I love it. My prayer is that junior will get to play more in the garden…a garden he has to make yet next summer. I pray that soon the sheds will be gone through and emptied out since we know what we want to keep now and the big shed will become his workshop. He loves to putter and I love for him to do that. He is so creative and seeing what his mind comes up with is astounding to me. As I went through surgery for my appendix I received a phone call from my daughter. Since that surgery we have talked again and Momma is now happy that both her children are talking to her again. We have talked for an hour at a time and well it feels good. My son and I connected in the spring. My daughter and I in the fall and as the year closes I find myself even more grateful. At this point my prayer is “Lord teach me to be what I need to be for my children.” I no longer want to have my children be what I want but what God wants me to be. God is bringing me back to relationship with my children. Yup, I am closer to God as this year ends. I have grown more, trusted more and faced life instead of curling up in a ball and quitting life. So how is your faith journey going? Are you closer to God than at the start of the year? May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet

December 24, 2011 Greetings My Friend, Today is Christmas Eve. The year is winding down and a new one is upon us. Today we celebrate Christ’s birth. Many people just like the present giving and family gathering that Christmas brings. I know I did for years. The gathering of family and celebrating meant a whole lot to me. I believe as I look back though that even though I went to church I did not have the right spirit about Christmas. I was more focused on family and on presents. As I left my former marriage I found myself celebrating holidays alone with Junior. That was hard. Still I think I now have a better perspective of Christmas and to be honest I feel the gift we have been given down deep in my soul. The true gift of Christmas is Jesus. The Wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus and I think that is how we started having Christmas with gifts. In the pioneer days the gifts were simple gifts. They were often gifts that were made and the gifts were often things a person would need. If I think about the gifts the Wise Men brought then I realize that those gifts were what the family needed. After they came an angel told joseph that he needed to take his family and move to Egypt. The gifts the Wise men brought were used by the family to support them while they were in Egypt. Baby Jesus did not get any toys or clothes or even food. The Wise men brought expensive gifts and those gifts then could be used to purchase what the family needed. The gift of baby Jesus is astounding to me. We love the tiny baby in a manger part of Christmas. Jesus came to poor parents. His mother was a teenage mother. We see that despite all the odds our Savior was a wanted child. Even if his first bed was a manger which is a place where the animals were fed and he was nestled in hay to support his tiny body. When I break down the poverty our Savior was born into I am astounded. For me these stories and I believe these stories show me the reality of God, of his Son and the gift we are given in him. I also have to remember that our Savior eventually grew up. He then taught us who God is and God’s great love for us. Jesus then died an awful death to redeem us. That is pretty amazing stuff to me. That is why I believe the Bible is true. It is not sugar coated and we all live happily ever after. We see real people in the Bible. We see nice people and we see cruel people. We see awful behavior. When Moses went up on the mountain to talk with God the people resorted to drunkenness and to orgies. Even if you aren’t a Christian, that type of behavior is still repulsive to most people. So to me this means the Bible is true. God condemns this bad behavior. I often hear people say “it is in the Bible’ and then make it sound like it is ok. No, there is a whole lot of junk, bad behavior and God condemns it. So reading the Bible is important if you want to live a life pleasing to God. For me before I read my Bible I ask God to open my heart to Him. I want to hear God and his ways not what I want. Many people talk about the wrath of God in the Old Testament. God was constantly telling the people to stop, to return to him. They chose to go on their merry way using God when it was convenient. Many people believe they need only the New Testament. I believe we need both. Jesus taught from the Old Testament so I believe we need to read both. To me the Old Testament teaches us so much about going about life in our way. We need to center our lives on God. Junior told me when we first married that he wants me to put God before him. I attempt to do that. On my own I would put Junior on a pedestal and then he would do something that would disappoint me and then I would fall out of love. God teaches me how to love Junior. So I read both the Old and New Testament. In reading all the way through the Bible for each year I constantly feel God’s love. Some people read it through once and then they read different books. For me I read it through and do lessons alongside of my reading. I need this type of studying. It helps me grow better. As you open up gifts, visit with friends and family try to remember the true gift of a Savior born in a stable. To me it is humbling. God could have sent his Son as a king in our world. No he sent his son as a child born to poor parents and a teenage mother. At some point in your holiday also remember that Jesus grew up and died for you. Are you willing to admit that Jesus is your Savior? We all will come to an end of our life. If we don’t accept this gift then we will have an entire eternity of pain and suffering. Accepting Jesus and allowing God to change you means an eternity of joy. One decision can make a huge impact on eternity. Merry Christmas. May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet

December 17, 2011 Greetings My Friend, Junior and I spent a couple days of driving recently. I love going on trips, day trips and longer trips. I love being in the car with my man. I love the conversations we often enter into. There are no outside distractions so we will get into some involved conversations. We explore our beliefs, our dreams and life in general. As the journey goes on we often are tired. It wears on us physically as well as emotionally. If there are detours due to construction we need to re-think our journey and how to arrive where we want to go. As I woke up this morning I was thinking that my faith is a journey. When I first became a Christian I was broken. I was devastated with my divorce. In my brokenness I wound up turning to God. At some point I wanted to go deeper and I prayed the sinner’s prayer. For me this is when I began my faith journey in earnest. I needed to make a commitment to God and this was the way for me to do that. I grew up in one church and brought my children up in the same church. I’m not into doing a lot of church shopping. I like to make a commitment and then attempt to stick with it. The divorce prompted me to move on. It was too hard seeing my ex so I found another church home. In my new church family I began to understand the faith journey in a deeper way than I had ever done before. The new church had a singles program and then when I married junior they had a re-married program which helped us a whole lot. My faith kept growing. I like to look at my faith journey like a runner does their sport. They need to constantly be examining what they are doing so they can run better and faster. The thing I love about God is he takes you right where you are at. I didn’t have to be perfect. I just had to give God my heart. God took my heart and told me that he loves me. That was an awesome moment for me. I was acceptable as I was. God takes you right where you are and then he changes you. To be in a faith journey means that you don’t stay the same. You will consistently keep growing if you are listening to God. He will point out the things he wants you to do. It may be that you need to let go of strong holds or he may guide you into a ministry. Sometimes God directs me to reach out to certain people. Out here B crossed my path. We were on the porch chatting when B came by one time. Her son was helping junior. In fact Junior saw him walking down the tracks by our house and started a conversation. He realized that J was a loner. He befriended J and then eventually asked him to help with our new home. Junior taught J some skills and the hope is he will be able to find a job. B came by to get her son and we began talking. Anyway B started talking to me and we hit it off rather well. We were giggling and chatting and having a good time. She came by a few more times and then she said she had been praying to find a girlfriend. We knew that this area has a high unemployment rate and many people are on the dole. As I discovered more about B I learned she has been on disability for decades now. She was injured pretty badly in a car accident or two. She can’t work. In my heart I believe God brought me to B. The wonderful thing is B ministers to me as much as I minister to her. That is the other thought; church seems to be like that too. I have a skill and God places me in the right church family for my skill. So my journey takes me to a church, to people who are in need and it also takes me to moments where I have to learn about me. I have learned to love people who don’t like me. I have learned to let go of bad habits that aren’t good for me. For me one of the most profound lessons I am learning is to Agape love people. Agape love is to seek another person’s highest the highest good means a few ‘no’s” sprinkled into the love. As I explore this then I realize the journey does not mean you get to accept Jesus as your Savior and that is that. It does mean you accept Jesus and then you grow. If you are not growing then I would have to question your faith. It seems that God does not want you to accept him and be the same. He will grow you. Sometimes in my journey I go down a wrong road. I will hear God wrong; I will decide to do what I want rather than what God wants. King David comes to mind. He loved God and yet he messed up big time. God sent Nathan the prophet to let David know about David’s transgression. When confronted with his sin David repented. That is a must in your faith journey. You have to admit or confess to God your sin. Admitting my sin was hard for a very long time. I felt beat up enough without telling God about my faults. I resisted and resisted. Finally one day I started confessing. At first I did blanket confessing. I prayed “forgive me for I have sinned.” Then I learned I needed to name my sin. Ouch! I did begin naming my sin and I am ever grateful I did. When I learned that God wasn’t going to beat me up because I sinned, I began to confess. In confessing I learned to “name’ the sin and in the naming the sin I began to let go. God wants me to confess not so he can strong arm me but to help me move beyond it. How is your journey of faith going? May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet

December 10, 2011 Greetings my Friend, Soon it will be Christmas. For me it is a time to ponder the gift of salvation, the gift of Jesus. The wonderful gift of God in the flesh and how he came as a baby is a mystery to me. It is a marvelous mystery. As I ponder this mystery I find myself going to the very beginning. My thoughts tend to start with conception. As the statement of faith goes it says, “I believe, that our Lord was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” I stop at this point and ponder in wonder. Our lord was conceived, not like we are conceived but conceived none the less. Then I ponder that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus came from a woman as we came from a woman. He was a seed inside her growing as we grow and at the right time he was born. That means he was all bloody like we are. That means he needed to be nursed and diapered, just like us. From the very beginning Jesus experienced life as we did and do. I remember one time as a young person thinking that God does not know because He is in heaven and we are down here living life. At this point I start to feel foolish, first of all God created us so He knows. As I watched my children grow up I had a good idea of what life like was as a child, I was a child. I also knew my child like a lot of people could not know my child. I was their mother. Second of all God sent His only Son. Our lord lived life. He ate, he drank, he cried, he laughed and he lived right alongside of us. At this point in my thinking I marvel. I am so amazed that our lord Jesus came to this sin filled world. He hung out with the lowest of the low type of people. That is another marvel to me. Jesus hung out with the lowest of the low. At times I feel like I am amongst the lowest of the low. Jesus came to save all people. He said something like the healthy did not need a doctor, the sick did. He came to give hope to those who needed hope and did not have hope. In recent years many in my family have voiced their disdain for me. It hurts beyond words. At this point I look to Jesus and he reminds me that he came to give hope to the unwanted in society. That means I am a wanted child of God. As I ponder this I begin to realize that I am a child of the king. That is an awesome moment as well. As I continue on in my thoughts I focus on the fact that Jesus walked with us, ate with us, drank, laughed, cried and did everything we do. I marvel at this thought. Jesus was upset when he went to take a fig off a tree and there wasn’t one. He even cursed the tree and it died. He was hungry and wanted to eat, like right now. How many times have I been that hungry? He even knows that simple act of hunger. As I take my thoughts further I begin to marvel at the teaching we received from him. We learn of God’s great love for us, his desire for us to know him and walk with him. About now I start to see Jesus reaching out to people. He saved lives literally. He offered hope to the woman at the well. Jesus touched our lives in profound ways. Jesus turned 5 loaves of bread into enough to feed 5,000. He turned water into wine. The poor woman caught in adultery was saved. So now I start to think our lord would die a horrible death, just for us. At this point as I look at the cross I begin to see what hell is like. As I ponder Jesus’ last hours and all that he endured, there is pain I can’t even begin to imagine, as hard as I try. The Bible says that hell is a gnashing of the teeth. I grind my teeth and I wake up with a sore jaw from the grinding. It hurts. This is about the time I think….eternity….that is a very long time. If we do not accept the gift of salvation then that is what we have to look forward to. As I see the pain from being scourged, whipped and then glass and bone tied to the whip, mocked, a crown of thorns roughly placed on his head, his face beaten till it is swollen, nails in his flesh and then all the emotional and spiritual pain, I again begin to comprehend what hell is about. Up on the cross our lord had compassion. That is a marvel to me. To me….all that pain….I’d be a little self-focused. Jesus had compassion. He prayed for God to forgive them, he gave his mother Mary to john and he told the thief he would be in heaven. That always brings amazement to me. Then Jesus dies. At this point I can imagine the disciple’s confusion. They watched Jesus walk on water, calm the sea, heal the sick and drive out demons. They knew he was special, beyond special. Then Jesus dies. The hope we have is Jesus rose from the dead. At that point we now have the gift of salvation. In the Bible it states, ‘For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whoever shall believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.’ The way I see it is we need to accept this gift. The operative phrase is “that whoever shall believe in him.’ So Jesus starts as the cuddly little baby. We all love the story of him in the manger. If our faith goes beyond Christmas though then we need to see the cross, the horror of it, and the wonder of Jesus’ resurrection. For me, this is the hope I have. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was born of the virgin Mary suffered under Pontius pilot and was crucified died and was buried. On the third he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Won’t you ponder, accept the free gift we all have been given and accept this gift/ May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet

December 3, 2011 Greetings My Friend, My heart is speaking to the young people in my life today. It is a conversation I started before they were born and have wanted to tell them from back then. Today in my heart is the time to attempt to put into words those things which have been on my heart. This conversation is a conversation I wanted to have with my own children and did not know how to have it. It is heavy on me. Young people, I want to tell you of my journey and I’m not looking for sympathy or whatever else. I want to tell you what I have learned. In the Bible God instructs us to teach our children. I think this is my attempt to teach. First off, my desire is for each of you to meet Jesus and to accept His offer of salvation. It took me 40 some years to get it. I have it now and I want to share what I know. Life is not a cake walk just because you ask Jesus to be Lord in your life. Jesus will give you the confidence though to face any situation if you will ask for it. You have to be honest with Jesus. He sees all and knows all so to tell Jesus a story won’t work. The biggest thing I want to talk about is sex. At your age….it is exhilarating to talk dirty, to even let a person touch those private areas on your body. My heart felt statement at this point is to ask that you wait. Wait for the right person. How do you know? Talk to God, He will guide you. When I married Papa L, I fainted and threw up at the altar. Is he a bad man? No not really. He was not the right man for me. Years later when I began my faith journey I realized that day that God was telling me, “Don’t marry him.” Papa L and I were married a real long time. I am sure you have heard stories about the unhappiness that was in our home from your parents. When I was 14 I helped my mother work on weddings at the church. There was a boy who was 4 years older than me. He convinced me to go into a dark room with him. He touched me in those private places. I remember being confused. No boy had ever touched me like that before. To be honest…it felt nice. We never went any further. He moved on with his life and I grew more and went on with my life. There was a boy prior to Papa L. He was two years younger. He liked me in the girl/boy kind of way. We held hands. That felt real nice to. Then I met Papa L and we started dating. Before long….we were doing things that married people do. I felt so grown up. I liked the thrill of doing something….that was wrong. It was kind of exciting. I also wasn’t sure. I was never sure if he liked me for me or for my body. After we married and I put on weight. I felt I wasn’t pretty anymore. I struggled emotionally. I even became anorexic for a while. I felt that way the whole time I was married to him. When I divorced Papa L, I met Papa J. We dated and enjoyed each other’s friendship. We kissed and yes I did the man wife thing with Papa J before marriage. I regret that now. I learned that God wants us to wait and to know each other before we enter into marriage, into sex. I have asked God to forgive me and he has. I have learned there is a reason to wait. The reason is that we need to be friends first. We need to know each other before sex. Sex changes the dynamics of a relationship. God created sex and yes it can be fun. I have learned though that we need to enter into life, sex, everything on earth the way God created us to be. In that we will find life fulfilling and enjoyable. There will always be struggles. That is when God wants us to seek Him. Well He wants us to seek Him in all things. When I do, I find even the struggles to be manageable. Many times after the struggle has passed, I find a sense of…..accomplishment. I am amazed at what I can endure and do. How do I know how God created life to be? I read the Bible pretty much daily, over and over, year after year. I pray daily. I associate with other Christians. I don’t only hang around with Christians, but I have good friends who will step beside me as I do life. These good Christian friends help me discern, to reach out and to live my life. So I do try to talk to non-Christians and to love them as well. Each generation must find God. What our parents have learned and found well, it is good. Hopefully our parents will live as if Jesus were their Savior. In that the younger generation has the chance to meet Jesus. If not, then….our culture falls apart. When I was young, everyone went to church. Everyone accepted that Jesus is the “way, the truth and the light.” Then our culture started to move away from Jesus. I see a lot of our problems today as a result of not making Jesus number 1. They took prayer out of school. They have taken God out of almost everything in our culture. Not good. Life will only get worse and worse. This country was founded on the principals found in the Bible. Now we are in a way telling God, “never mind, we can do this our way.” In my day….we had hard times for sure. The more we as a nation sought God, prayed in school etc….we bounced out of the struggles of life easier. If we keep going on this way, I’m afraid that our mighty nation will no longer be mighty. Kids, I hope you have heard my heart. I pray you each find Jesus, meet Him and ask Him to be the Savior in your life. I love each of you beyond words. I have prayed since you were in your mother’s womb and I continue to pray for you each and every day. I love you. Love GG. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.