Hold on (just a little while)

Just a little while longer,

and you, 

Oh God,

will move, 

restore, 

and heal

these various fault lines,

jagged beneath the streets 

of all we grapple above

in this city of refuge under fog.

...if John the Baptist had a car...

Snug beneath these mountains topped with snow, my heart is caving in on itself.  There are empty rooms in a house below, the house in which I live.  empty cavities of people sized holes where people used to be, and should be still.
Ever wonder when the Lord is going to swoop in and fix your situation?
I do, I wonder.

Do you have circumstances in your life that you wish God would swoop in and change?  Are there problems beyond you that you wish the Lord would just hurry up and fix already?  I do.  I have had many moments  alone in my car when I just yelled and screamed at God,  "WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING THESE THINGS TO CONTINUE TO HAPPEN?"
And then, in all of my finite human wisdom,
  "THIS IS DOING NO ONE ANY GOOD!"

"The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved."
Jeremiah 8:20
-yes, I have been there, yes I have felt that!

I don't think that the Lord is ever FOR bad and sinful things happening to us. I think that sometimes he allows them to happen without intervening because He knows that out of them will eventually come a greater healing.  What the enemy means for evil, He himself is turning to good in our lives.
He knows something we don't know.

John the Baptist had lived his whole life completely devoted to Jesus.  He never wavered in this.  He knew clearly that Jesus, his cousin, was the Messiah that the whole world had been groaningly waiting for.  I'm sure that many of the people throughout history up to this point had prayed something like, "GOD!  WHY HAVE YOU NOT YET RESCUED US?? WHERE IS THIS MESSIAH, already!! DO SOMETHING!"
GOD DID, but it was in the perfect timing, from his own wisdom not understood by the wisdom of the humans.
So here is John the Baptist, completely devoted, preaching about Jesus before Jesus ever preached about himself,
and warning the religious leaders of the day,

"You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.  And do not think that you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father' I tell you that out of those stones God can raise up children for Abraham.  The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
Matthew 3:7-10

And he didn't even make any small talk before he said that; and he did not consider whether his words were "seeker friendly."  He was simply preparing the way for Jesus and not tolerating the evil he saw in his day.

If John had had a car, it would not have a "COEXIST" bumper sticker on the back.

He later warned Herod, the leader of the people, that is was WRONG of Herod to have taken his brother's wife as his own.
John did not say "Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance.  Let's just all tolerate sin, because this is the loving thing to do!"
He did not.
Because it's not.
So Herod put John in prison.
And John felt completely betrayed by Jesus, the Jesus for whom he had devoted everything to preparing the way.
Maybe John was thinking,
"Thanks, cousin Jesus, I'M THE ONLY ONE SPEAKING UP FOR YOU, and THIS is how you repay me? BECAUSE I ACTUALLY KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND I KNOW THAT YOU COULD HAVE PROTECTED ME FROM THE WRATH OF HEROD."

"When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"
Matthew 11:2-3

These are the words of a man who was disheartened, hurt, feeling disappointed and let down by Jesus.
The very Jesus he had lived his life defending.

People are afraid to speak the truth in love.  Afraid to speak up for righteousness.  Afraid of being politically incorrect, and offending anyone else.   I'm just like you.  I want all people to like me while reserving the right to not have to like them back.  I'm not willing to put my own neck on the line.  Because like you, I don't want to have to suffer for doing the right thing.
But maybe Jesus would ask me to put my neck on the line.
Literally. 
And maybe we will have to suffer for doing and saying the right thing.
People don't like it when you say the right thing, and not the politically correct thing.
People don't like it when you stand up for the Lord.
But are we living to please people, or living to please GOD?

 the bible still says that
  "...in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28

All things.  Not just the things that make sense to us, that seems like working out of good and lack of persecution or pain.
So in those times of deepest misunderstanding of why the Lord is allowing a painful thing into our lives, we have to rely on the knowledge that

"The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
1 Corinthians 1:25
sometimes this is the ONLY thing we can truly know.

Even in John's disheartened doubt, Jesus told John's disciples,

"Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.  Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me."
Matthew 11:4-6

And then Jesus said to all of the people around him,

"Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist."
Matthew 11:11

These were the last words Jesus ever said to John, because shortly after this, John was beheaded.
In other words, no one showed up to retrieve John from prison.
The Lord did not send angels to break John's chains, nor did he send angels to stop the ax from severing John's head.
What?  Did I read that right?  

I have been a Christian for many years, I have read the bible clean through, and yet is has only been within the past month that I stumbled upon these words:

"The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and on one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.  Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death."
Isaiah 57:1-2

 John the Baptist was a righteous man who died young.
And then this occurred to me: That since Jesus Christ is the Jesus who came to bear our burdens and carry our griefs for us,
maybe, he was doing this very thing for John in allowing John to die young.
Jesus knew that he himself was soon to also die.  But where as John's death, through gross and gruesome, was quick and hopefully painless, the death of Jesus was going to be long, drawn out, and agonizingly torturous.
So maybe, just maybe, Jesus was actually mercifully sparing John from having to watch that.

Maybe Jesus was thinking, John, you have always been the only person who truly understand who I am, why I have come, and you have spent your life devoted to me.  You are my closest relative and friend.  So if one of us has to grieve for the death of the other, let it be me.  I will grieve over your death so that you do not have to grieve over mine, and then by the time I am restored to paradise, you will already be there, and we will be celebrating at being reunited.  But you will not understand this before it happens.  But truly, this is what it looks like for me to be personally bearing your burden for you.

The bible had foretold this about Jesus:

"He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.  Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed."
Isaiah 53:3-5

He did this for us, yet we did not understand that He was doing this for us.

I don't know what types of persecution you have faced or will face in the future.  I don't know if my own pain will ever resolve itself into the ways I wish with all of my being that they would.  So I am choosing to keep my focus on Jesus, knowing that someday, someday, it will make sense.  But that day might not be in this lifetime.
And yet I trust that HE IS GOOD,
HE IS SO VERY GOOD,
AND BETTER THAN I CAN POSSIBLY KNOW.
To God be all the glory,
Amen.

John the Baptist (Jesus knows your grief)

Pre-Script:  In my heart, I deeply desire to know the heart of Jesus. Therefore,  I am reading through the gospels again, slowly, and taking notes.  I am prayerful as I read, asking the Lord to reveal to me anything I may have missed in reading these gospels, and to understand the true intent of Jesus' words.  I am not here to add anything to the words of Jesus; that would be blasphemy.  These are simply my observations from reading through the gospels.  Jesus said a lot of things, do I actually know and understand what he said, or do I just think I know because I've heard a few sermons?  The Lord is opening my eyes.  I expect him to continue because the bible says that 

"the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him." (2 Chronicles 16:9) 

I believe that to anyone who is truly His, He will begin to reveal His heart. This is a mystery, and this is the deepest treasure.   

    The more I try to read the bible, to truly read it to understand it, the more I realize the need to keep reading and learning and understanding it.  There is never an end to reading the bible.  I can read the same bible verses and stories any amount of times I read them, and each time I learn something new, if I am willing to hear it, and if I am willing to keep a soft heart.  

     If anyone thinks that they have read and studied the whole bible and know and understand all there is to know about it, I feel sorry for that person.

"Get wisdom, get understanding;...The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom." Proverbs 4:5 and 7

Once upon a time, (AD 1-30 ish?) Jesus had a cousin.  His name was John.  He was probably, from what I can tell in reading the scriptures, the closest friend Jesus ever had.  John was only 6 months older than Jesus, and by my observation, John seemed to be the only other person on Earth who fully believed and accepted that Jesus was the Son of God.  John knew that Jesus was the Messiah, and he also knew that the point of John's birth was to be the voice that prepared the way of the Messiah.  

Before John was born, an angel had appeared to his father, and said:

"Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.  He will be a joy and a delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.  He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.  He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.  And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous-to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

Luke 1:13-17

John knew this, and he lived out his calling with passion and conviction.  

"In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

Matthew 3:1-2

(and later, John said:)

"I baptize you with water for repentance.  But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

Matthew 3:11

Even among the followers of Jesus, John the Baptist seems to be the only one who fully understood what was actually going on with this Jesus God person Messiah the rest of the people weren't too sure about.

There is so much about John that I could write.  His life and ministry were extraordinarily profound.  But the main thing that is piercing my heart right now to say about John is that this most close and precious friend of Jesus, more a brother than a cousin, had a life and ministry that was ended short by a violent, horrific murder.

John the Baptist was unjustly imprisoned, and then beheaded.

Have you ever experienced such a grief?

Has anyone you loved dearly died?

What about violent murder, has your best friend been violently murdered?

If so, you have a Savior who has suffered that very thing.

One description of Jesus is as

  "A man of suffering, and familiar with pain."(New International Version)

or in other words,

"A man of sorrows,  and acquainted with deepest grief."(New American Standard Version)

or in other words,

"A man of sorrows, intimately familiar with suffering"(International Standard version)

-All translations of Isaiah 53:3

The story is written out in the book of Matthew chapter 14. 

Yet the grief that Jesus felt was only slightly hinted at in the bible.  

"When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place."

Matthew 14:13

It seems to me that Jesus needed some time to be alone in his grief.  But the people followed him anyway, they would not leave him alone.  And though his heart must have been broken,  Jesus had compassion on them, and knew it was his duty to minister to them, even while grieving.  

"When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick."

Matthew 14:14

But when that crowd went home that night, Jesus let his disciples leave and he spent more time alone.

   

"Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.  After he had dismissed them, he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray."

Matthew 14:22-23

I have a feeling that it was to grieve and just heal up a bit of his heart.  

But that is all the information we have about Jesus reaction to the news of the death of his cousin.

     I think that because the death of Jesus was so much the point of his whole life and ministry, we probably don't think about the death of John the Baptist very much. 

 But really, the truth is, before Jesus ever suffered his own horrific death for us, He had experienced the horror of the violent murder of (to what I can best surmise was) his best, most beloved friend, and probably his closest family member.  

It seems like a situation that could be absolutely pulled out of the headlines in the newspaper today.   So if you have ever experienced a violent death of someone you love in your own life,  know that the Lord of Lords and King of Kings at one point in human history walked this earth in human flesh.  But before he ever fulfilled his calling to be physically tortured and murdered for us, in His own personal life He had suffered deep, emotional grief.

     

Cookies. Which I invented. You're welcome.

((***Updatet: I wrote this post two days ago.  In the meantime, I have realized that it actually sounds a lot more sarcastic than I meant it to sound.  When I am writing these posts, I usually have limited time to write, and am just trying to finish before the children wake up from their naps.  I actually have done more research on gluten and believe that the rest of my family would benefit from not eating gluten.  It's not always the foods themselves, like various grains and wheat, that are harmful, but the ways in which they are processed before being packaged in this country.  Unfortunately, the gluten free options aren't always much better.  You can do the research on your own.  I also would actually really like to start using carob chips in place of chocolate chips; I just don't know where to find them and am still not willing to have to go to one more store for one item!  SO this food thing is really a work in progress, as I strive for excellence in my family's nutrition, without compromising on taste and satisfaction.  Eating well just makes you feel better, and I strive to create nutritious things that are also delicious and completely satisfying.  I'll post some more recipes soon!))


"I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you." 

Psalm 63:5

(David, to God)

Wow, food. 

I don't put much stock in whatever dietary advice is currently trending.  It would be a poor return on my investment, since dietary trends change so very often.  I have long held the belief that the foods God originally placed on this earth for humans to eat MUST be good for us.  In fact, I suspect that they must be the BEST foods for us to eat, even in ways that current science has not yet figured out.  Not everything is a scienctifically quantifiable fact; some things you just know because of how they make you feeeeeel.  The feeeeeeeeeling of having lasting energy and wakefulness is not a lie.  No one can actually tell you what foods work for your own body;  I don't understand the physiology of it all, but some people can tolerate certain foods and some people cannot.

     I have no allergies.

     I have the immune system of an ox.

     That previous statement assumes that oxen immune systems are as strong as an ox.  That's how strong my immune system is.  I almost never get sick.  

     But I have a child who was getting sick for no apparent reason this past year, and my aunt suggested to me that it might be an intolerance to gluten.  The irony is that I know that gluten is the popular band wagon thing everyone is currently avoiding like the plague.  But in my child's case, said child would ACTUALLY get sick.  Like SICK sick.  Involving actual throw up.  Not just, "I think she has a leaky gut."  

     The other ironic thing is that at the time of this apparent gluten intolerance appearing in my child, I didn't even realize that I myself had not been eating gluten.  Me, Miss "I don't do band wagon eating plans," without even thinking about it, I just wasn't.  I was filling up on things like sweet potatoes, greek yogurt, eggs with avocados.  The newly acquired Nutribullet was being used several times a day as the source from which I was finally able to injest cruciferous vegetables without gagging.  I was so full and satisfied that I never thought about bread or the barley, rye, and malt types of foods in which gluten hides.  And so I realized that removing the gluten from my child's life would not be very hard; I would just feed Child like I was already feeding myself.  

     Upon the removal of the gluten, wouldn't you know it, but Child's symptoms disappeared?  So then my lack of eating gluten became deliberate.  Still not because I was about to jump on the "gluten is the sum of all evil" band wagon, but because I was not going to tell Child to eat some special way that I was not also willing to eat.  The rest of my family still eats gluten, but this one particular Child and I are one in GF solidarity. 

      So then there I was, at the store, reading labels, and seeing Gluten Free alternatives all around me.   You can find them at every grocery store.  They are the boxes half the size of the gluten version for double the price.  And then you read the back of the package and it goes: 

  Gluten Free Flour Ingredients: White Rice Flour, Brown Rice Flour, Potato Starch, Coconut Flour, Pinto Bean Flour, Guargum, and a sprinkling of dead sea salt water.  And a kitchen sink too.

...versus the box of the Gluten full, double sized, half priced alternative which goes:

Whole Wheat Flour Ingredients: Whole Wheat Flour.

And you stand in the aisle and scratch your head and go, "Am I missing something here?  Are that many things of randomly selected variety supposed to all be stuffed and ground together and digested in my stomach like that?   Is that going to cause something to go off in outer space, or like, grow a tree in my gut or something?    I have a suspicion that simply eating plain old WHOLE WHEAT is better for me than all of...that stuff.  

But hey, it's gluten free, right? 

(wink) 

....and then I actually did some baking with the gluten free flour mixes.  And then I actually ate the things I had baked.  The flavor was great!  But then I would feel like a brick was expanding and nesting within my stomach, and I would feel light headed and loopy.  Maybe it's just me, but I highly suspect that that is not the feeling of a gut becoming un-leaky.  

My oldest child pointed out to me that  maybe just maybe I wouldn't feel so sick if my brain contained an off switch when it comes to sweets.  So like, maybe if I would eat just one, I wouldn't feel so bad.  But see this is why you cannot listen to the things your children say.  They have a tendency to see with lazorlike precision exactly what is wrong with you, and point it out to you, and point it out again and again, without ever sugar coating it, not ever even once.  

     Hi, my name is Michelle, and I lack the off switch part of my brain when it comes to sweets.  I have stories upon stories of this, but let's just say that in my mind, it is cruel to offer someone the actual portion size listed on the package.  And this is not a good quality in me, not good at all. 

 I also find that the opposite is true: I can completely avoid sweets and never miss them.  Except for the times that I do miss them, and for those times, I need a solution, one that does not involve breaking my word to Child that I would not partake of gluten, and also would not make me sick by it's sick ingredients.  

     So I had to come up with my own.  

     And in doing so, I began to share what I had discovered with the people around me, and in doing so, the people around me began to request my recipes, in exact measurements and quantities.  Because the people around me don't exactly understand just how scatterbrained I actually am.  But for the sake of the masses of fellow non gluten eaters, I will share some of the cookie things I have been inventing and baking.  

    In my mind, these are more delicious than anything I ever ate back in my gluten full days.  

Before I get to my recipes, here is the belief system behind them:

-I am not willing to shop at specialty grocery stores.

-I am not willing to spend a fortune on groceries, so I seek out affordable alternatives.

-I like simple ingredients, and knowing exactly what I am putting in my own food.

    - I like eating real food.  By real food, I mean not chemicals.  Not synthetic alternatives and man made weird stuff.  By real food, I also mean that if you are going to eat eggs, eat the yolk, too.  If you are going to eat the cheese, for instance, you eat real cheese, not the "low fat" alternatives; it's not natural for someone to remove the naturally occurring fat out of the cheese.  The same is true for butter and cream and milk.  I don't believe in 1% or low fat or NO Fat milk.  If you're going to drink milk, drink it whole.  Your brain needs to omega 3's!  And while we are discussing fat as a dietary reality, 

    - I am a big believer in eating fat.  All the kinds.  Butter, avocado, nuts, and their oily counterparts.  I don't often eat red meat, but I believe that on the rare occasion that I do eat red meat, it's wise to leave some of the fat on there!  I believe with all of my heart, mind, soul, and heart, that eating like this is good for your brain, your skin, and that it helps your body absorb all of the other nutrients you put in.  Plus, a little bit of fat goes a long way in filling you up and actually satisfying you.  

    Speaking of satisfied: 

I believe in eating until you are satisfied, 

whether that is the portion size on the box or not.  GORGING is not satisfied.  Gorging is stuffing your feeling and grief and numbing yourself like you would with any other drug.  But that is another topic for another blog post.  

     And there's this tiny little detail you might find interesting: 

By eating like this, I have never gained weight.

And I feel great.

**HUGE NOTE!  I am not a food scientist, I am not a chemist or a biologist or a chef or anything like that.  The things I wrote above just MAKE SENSE TO ME, and my body is happy, and my skin is clearer and softer than ever, and my mind is not foggy.  

So with that in mind, and with the tweaking of some other recipes I have found, I present you with the best best best cookies I have ever eaten:  

Chocolate Chip Nut Butter Cookies  

2 cups of ground almonds

1/2 cup of ground walnuts

1/4 cup of either ground cashews or ground pecans-or not.  

(-A word about the ground up nuts:  I buy nuts at Grocery Outlet because they are cheaper, and grind them into the texture of flour in my nutribullet.  But you can also buy them pre-ground at Trader Joes and other such stores.

-Any combination of ground nuts work for this recipe, but mostly almonds and then walnuts are my favorite combination

-I have had a lifelong hatred of walnuts; to me they are bitter!  But when I grind them and use them in place of flour, the bitter taste is gone.)

1/2 tsp of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of pink himalayan sea salt

1 egg

1/2 to 3/4 cup of melted coconut oil

1/2 cup of your favorite nut butter (Peanut, cashew, almond, etc...but note: Just know when you eat peanuts that they are considered legumes, and not nuts.  If that matters to you at all.)

1/2 a bag of dark or semi sweet chocolate chips.

If you want to add sweetness, you can also add a half cup of honey.  

-Feel free to add vanilla or cinnamon; these work with or without it.

-Feel free to add secret superfoods like chia seeds and crushed flax; I have done this and you can't even tell or taste the difference.  

Mix all ingredients until they are all blended.  

Bake at 350 degrees for approx 10 minutes, depending on your oven and depending on how firm or soft you life your cookies.

Alternatives to this recipe, which are AMAZING:

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

Do everything exactly as listed above, only Instead of nut butter, add a 15 ounce can of organic pure pumpkin.  This actually makes your cookie dough go father, which means you make more cookies this way!  The texture with the pumpkin will be softer than the texture with the nut butter, and you might want to leave them in for five minutes or so to firm them up.  Or just eat them soft.  Either way!

An even MORE delicious alternative: 

 BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

Instead of a can of pumpkin, add a smashed banana!  The taste is exactly that of chocolate chip banana bread.  Probably your ideal baking time would be 11-12 minutes for these.

Even more CRAZY but still sweet and delicious of an alternative:

PUMPKIN BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

Add BOTH a 15 oz can of pumpkin and a smashed banana!  It's just sweet, but not distinctly banana or pumpkin tasting.  With THIS alternative, you can say that you are eating both a vegetable and a fruit, all in one cookie.  The chocolate chips just add meaning.

But by all means, if you are one of those "no chocolate chips ever" people, feel free to (I am wincing as I type this) substitute with raisins or craisins.  My friend uses carob chips.  I like that idea, but I'm just not sure where to find carob chips around here.  (not that I have actually spent any time looking.  But refer to my basic rule of thumb against having to shop anywhere specialty.)

And bam, there you go.  

Who wants cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

Me, me, and me.

But I will refrain and instead keep it to a late afternoon snack which substitutes as dinner, and call that good enough.

Love and Happy, Healthy Baking!

 
   

This hardened stony ground

"You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.  You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops.  You crown the year with your bounty and your carts overflow with abundance.  The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.  The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing."

 Psalm 65:9

I live in a house that was built in the 1930's.  It was built to house the builders of the Shasta Dam.  It is a fifteen minute drive from our house to the Shasta Dam.  The dam was built to keep the Sacramento River from overflowing into the valley below.  The results of this architectural achievement is that BAM.  Lake Shasta.  If you haven't heard of it, you should look it up.  It's quite a hot spot for the water skiing, house boating, water-sport-in-general type of people.  

(I am not one of them, but I will strongly support you participating in those activities while I sit on my couch and read a book.)

     Until yesterday, I had never been to the Shasta Dam.  Sunday mornings are usually church mornings.  But one of the children was not well enough to attend Sunday School, so we decided to cozy up and take a little drive.  There are so many pretty places to drive around here.  We drove to see the dam, and the water it was keeping in.  It was beautiful and sad.  

Are you beautiful, and sad?

The water was low; I had never seen this particular lake, but it was obvious that the water level should be higher than it was.  Still, the atmosphere was serene and peaceful.  Probably because it is winter, and all of those water sport lovers were not participating in said activities.  Also because the visitor's center was not open to leading tours on a Sunday.  And so there were four of us.  

     Have you ever been some place where the light around you looks golden, and not like natural sunlight that hurts your eyes, but actually golden?  As if everything that stood within it's covering would also become dusted with gold, by association?  That is what it felt like there, with us, there.  And so we did what you do when the light is golden and good.  We took pictures without wearing sunglasses. 

 You could see the green on the hills all around, and you could see the green in our eyes. 

I stood there and looked at the dwindling water level and once again prayed for rain.

Not too much, and not too little, but enough at this point would still be a lot.  There were all of those days in December when it rained and rained for so many days in a row.  But then the rain dried up, and we have not had any rain since.  

 My spirit has been watered, though.

I get up early.  Very early, every morning, and I pray.

I don't just say words to God, I actually lay flat with my face on the ground, because to me, though I do not need to do that to impress God, it's the physical form in which my heart and mind belong all the time.  Just to lay flat out at the feet of the Lord.  I picture it just like that; that God is right there, and that I am at his feet, and I can see the bottom, just the very bottom, of His throne and possibly His robe flowing over His feet.  And in that moment, I never feel alone.  That moment is what carries me through the rest of the day. 

 (It's not just a moment, it's for at least an hour.) 

One thing I have prayed about myself for many years is this: "Lord, I am just a rock; a tiny pebble from which you cannot squeeze anything.  But YOU are THE ROCK, the source from which the living water flows.  So I pray that on you I can fall, and rest, and that your flood will overflow me until it is flowing from within me, so that I cannot help but overflow to everyone and everything around me."

Every day.

For the past ten years, I have prayed this prayer every day.

And in the midst of that ten years, there have been trials, there have been griefs and utter brokenness of things that should never have been broken.  I do not turn away from the heat of this truth.  But the getting out of bed while it is completely dark out, and the laying flat on the floor and giving God all of my attention and all of my pieces and parts to rearrange as He will, has only happened within the past year.  And it has made a difference.  Not just in me, but in every member of my family.  I see this.  I think it's just that when the Lord Himself is filling you with Himself, some of that overflow cannot help but splash on everything around you.

The water was low in the lake, but the land around was all green. and in the golden light of glory, I could see that the hillside was growing and full of life.

After looking at the scenery and snapping a few pictures, we drove back to our house.  To get to and from the Shasta Dam, you drive through an old little town.  It's probably as old as our house, as it was  also built and booming at the time the dam was being built.  The buildings are original, in this adorable little town among the hills of promise.  

My husband informs me that the town is not as nice on the inside as it looks on the surface.  There are  drugs, there is crime.  So Name it "Anytown America."  And wonder to yourself, as I do, if this is in any part why the rains have stopped.  Because though mankind now has the technology to fairly accurately predict the weather for the next ten days or more, we cannot do anything to change what we are about to face.  Only God can change the weather.  

Unless maybe we can.

I thought of this as I read Psalm 65 this morning.  The Psalm of David begins, 

"Praise awaits you, our God in Zion; to You our vows will be fulfilled."

Psalm 65:1

Have we fulfilled our vows to the Lord?  Have we been doing what we say we will do, which is what He tells us to do, if we are Followers or Jesus Christ?  Or are we allowing our vows to be broken and still expecting to be well watered?

I do not have the answer.  But I am reading slowly through the gospels once again, Matthew, Mark Luke and John, and I am asking the Lord to reveal His heart to me, to explain it to me in the way that He actually meant it, and I am taking notes.

I will be sharing these in the days to come.

Because when you lay your heart bare to Lord of Lords, and you seek after Him, He will reveal things to your heart. 

"This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it-the LORD is his name: 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

Jeremiah 33:2-3

(Now this verse above was a specific word, specifically to the prophet Jeremiah, but it is a true fact of the nature of God.)

 I do not have itching ears that want to hear what I want to hear. 

"In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.  But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work or an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry."

2 Timothy 4:1-5

(this was written specifically from the apostle Paul to Timothy, but it is good advice for today, as well, and an accurate sociological observation; that "time" to which he referred is happening now.)

 I want to hear what Jesus is accurately saying.  I want to be full of the knowledge and wisdom of the ages.

And probably when I read it, a tree will be just a tree,

But have you thought about how many types of trees there are?  Even the greenest, widest, and tallest of them need water.  

And I need water, too.

"Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.  Where can you get this living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?'

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

John 4:9-14