February 28 2016

February 18 2016 Greetings My Friend Winter’s long dreary cold seems to have no end lately. We have had a foot of snow. We are in a super cold spell now with some more snow from yesterday. The goal is to get warm and stay warm. With wood floors I make sure my warm socks and slippers are on my feet as I move about the house. In a few months the goal will be to find ways to cool off from the heat. Twice a year we seek relief from the extremes of heat and cold. Sometimes I wonder if we can ever find that perfect medium where it is not to hot or too cold. I have found the extreme in love too. Some people are just too intense for me. While other people seem to never have any emotion at all. Even in relationships we seem to seek that balance of “just right.” When I find myself contemplating these things my mind turns to God’s Word. In Revelation I hear again the passage “You are neither too warm or too cold.” God wants us to have passion and not a fence sitting attitude. He wants to see if we truly want to follow His ways or are we more concerned about what other people think of us more than we worry about if God likes what we are doing. I lived that fence sitting well. I could blend into the woodwork and no one noticed me. I wanted to be noticed real bad but being noticed came with a huge price so I sunk back into the woodwork scared and alone. It was a long road to finding passion and reaching out and living in that passion. I desired to have passion but safety was more important. On that fence if I made a mistake I wasn’t noticed very often. My friend Marilyn understood me and drew out my inward thoughts. She told me often that I was a deep thinker and it was too hard for her to delve into the depth of my thoughts. She pulled those thoughts out of me and then they made her uncomfortable. She would listen though. She cared enough to keep pushing me out of my shell. Counseling started helping me to see many of my fears were shared by others and I was not as alone as I felt I was. God’s love is what gave me the freedom to fly. Today when people meet me they don’t meet that scared woman I once was. In fact I tease people all the time with “I am from Michigan and I have an opinion and I am not afraid to share it.” It seems to me that my life has it’s share of seasons too, too cold, too hot and then it has settled into a season of warm inviting passion. I have a passion for my Savior. When I think of my immersion baptism I recall being in the river and those moments where the minister spoke, asked me about my belief in Jesus. I said I believed and then I was dunked under the very cold November water. How fitting that I was baptised in November’s cold water. Going under that cold water was letting go and I chose to die to my old ways, the sin in my life. Under water for the briefest moment I was dead (figuratively) I let go of the old “me.” As I rose I entered into a new life in Jesus. Sometimes I see God’s lesson’s so clearly. For years I was satisfied with a sprinkle baptism. The thief on the cross did not get baptised and he went to paradise with Jesus because he believed with all his heart. The actual baptism for me as I went down and came up publicly proclaimed this new journey to all that were present. I recall it from time to time and I look at it like I do my jewelry as a reminder of a vow and a way of life I chose on that very cold wintery day. My season of blending in at all costs has ended. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet