The Perfect Sunny Spot

Ephesians 1:4,5 (NLT)

Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure.

In the above scriptures God, through Paul, is telling us that He actually set us apart and choose us to be His very own before He ever created the world. God knew man would sin and fall away from His original good plan for us. He knew that and had already planned a way for us to be able to return to His family through His son Jesus before Adam ever set foot on this Earth. Isn't that good news? He adopted us as His very own and made special, loving plans for each and every one of us. Plans that only we can fulfill in our lifetime. People that only we can reach out to and touch with His love. Of course, the choice is always up to us. We can choose to follow His good plan for our lives and put our Creator first or we can choose to follow after our flesh and do what we think we want and need to be happy.

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I used to think I knew what I want and needed in my life in order to be happy and I didn't think it included God. I followed my own plans for my life for many years. It never brought me happiness. Sure, maybe I was happy once in awhile for a fleeting moment but never truly happy. I had no peace. I always ended up disappointed and heartbroken. Since I have given my life over to God and let Him take control, I have peace and a joy that isn't only fleeting.

When I spend time with God in His Word, I love to sit in the sun. If it is warm outside, I find a nice sunny spot, usually on my outdoor swing, and I read God's love letter (the Bible). If it is winter, I find a place inside my house where the sun is shining in and I read God's Word there. For me, feeling the warm sun on my face and hair as I read His Word is like feeling the warmth of his unconditional love which is pouring down on me from heaven above. It reminds me of the last part of a scripture:

Revelation 1:16 (AMP)

His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

Ephesians 1:18 (NLT)

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope He has given to those He called—His holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance.

You and I are His chosen holy people He called. It is up to us to answer that call.

Dear Heaveny Father, flood the eyes of my heart with your revealing light so that I may know and understand how rich and glorious my inheritance is with you. Thank you God for making a way for me to be a part of Your family again.

Discipline and Training bring Transformation

Our heavenly Father disciplines us for our own good, just as we as children were disciplined by our parents or we as parents discipline our children. Our parents did it and we do it as parents in order to teach our children. Every loving parent disciplines and corrects their children. God loves us more than we can ever imagine, it surpasses our understanding, our mere earthly human minds cannot understand the magnitude of God's complete and unconditional love for each and every one of us.

Before I go any further, I just need to clarify something. Unfortunately, some parents have taken discipline to a whole new level that is totally inappropriate called "child abuse." Whether it be verbal abuse, mental abuse or physical abuse, that type of punishment is not appropriate and not at all what God had in mind when He speaks of a father disciplining his child. This type of discipline is coming out of a heart full of anger, rage and frustration and the parent is taking it out on the child. Discipline involves training, teaching and correcting.

The definition of discipline is to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control. When I was in competitive figure skating, I had to go through a lot of training and discipline in order to be ready for a competition. It wasn't always fun to train. Getting up at 5AM on a cold winter morning while it is still dark outside and skating at a cold rink for hours in the morning was not fun. That took discipline and training by my coach. If I hadn't gone through the training, I would not have been ready or prepared when it was time to compete. Just as we put our bodies through training for a sport, God puts our hearts through training and discipline in order to prepare us for the good plans that He has for us.

Jeremiah 29:11 (Amplified)

For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.

Hebrews 12:6-11 (Amplified)

For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure correction for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not thus train and correct and discipline? Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all of God's children share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons at all. Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded to them and respected them for training us. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so truly live? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness. For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness -- conformity to God's will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].

We are not automatically God's children. In order to become His child, we must choose Him.

Deuteronomy 30:19 (Amplified)

I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Why should I choose Him if He is just going to beat the tar out of me?" That is not the kind of discipline He is talking about. He works on our hearts. We start out with hearts full of sin and selfishness. If we choose life, He begins to work the selfishness and sin out of our hearts and little by little our life is forever changed for the better. He begins transforming us into His image. The way to choose life is simple. We simply need to accept and believe that God sent His son Jesus to this earth to pay for our sins once and for all by sending His son to die on the cross and raising Him back to life on the third day and is now seated at God's right-hand side. We then receive Jesus who then dwells in our hearts.

God has given us all free will, He did not create nor want robots. When the bible says, "I set before you life . . ." it means when we choose to believe in and accept Jesus we receive the free gift of eternal life in heaven with Him. When the bible says, ". . . or death," it means, when we live to please our sinful selves and seek to satisfy our own selfish desires we are rejecting Him and we are not His children and we will not have a place in heaven. Hebrews 12:8 said, ". . . you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons at all." I like the way I have heard Joyce Meyer say it once, I am not sure if I am quoting this correctly but it went something like this: "I would rather live my life as if there is a God and find out I am right, than live my life as if there is no God and find out I am wrong." Basically what she is saying is that you have nothing to lose if you choose Him and everything to gain.

Some of the pain or trails we go through are brought on by ourselves; by our own foolish choices. Some people think that when something bad happens to them God is punishing them. That is not true. God does not punish like that. Remember, God only disciplines His children and you only become His child when you choose to believe in His son Jesus. Then the discipline begins, but it is a discipline of the heart as He works to remove the sin and selfishness out of us. We become a work in progress.

Let me give you a real-life example of how God works sin and selfishness out of our hearts. Before I accepted Jesus and He came to live in my heart, I used to spit or throw my gum out the car window as I was driving. I never thought twice about it. One day, after I had received Jesus, I was driving down the road and I had spit my gum into my hand and was about to throw it out the window. I heard a voice in my mind say, "No, that is littering." I proceeded to roll the gum around in my fingers while I drove as I was figured out what to do with it. I ended up rolling it into my grocery receipt and sticking it back in with my groceries. It is the little things like that, that He begins to work on and bring change in your heart and in your life.

I will give you another real-life example. Before I received Jesus, I used to walk my dogs in the park and not bother to clean up after them. I knew it was against the law to leave it there but I didn't care. One afternoon as I was walking the dogs, one of my dogs was going to the bathroom. I let her do her thing and began to walk away when I suddenly heard a voice in my head say, "Pick that up!" I was not prepared. I never carried those "pooper" bags for scooping up the poop. I suddenly felt a strong urge to do the right thing. I ended up using an empty cup that someone had littered and a stick to flick the doggy doo doo into the cup. I then proceeded to walk, rather quickly I might add, to the nearest garbage can.

Those, my friends, are some real-life examples of how God disciplines. If you want to read another example of how God deals with more serious issues, read my post titled, "Heart Issues." Hebrews 12:11 says, "For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit. . ." If you have read my post titled, "Heart Issues" you will know that discipline was painful and grievous for me to go through but it was something that had to be done and now that I have I am so much better off and I have so much peace.

God is not sitting in heaven thinking up ways to torture us as some people would believe. He loves all of us. He wants all of us to be His children, but it is our choice.

Heart issues

I was reading my bible one afternoon and I came across a piece of scripture that literally jumped off the page as I was reading it. Ok, not literally, but it might as well have. The verse caught my eye and I could not help but read it over and over and over again. It was like the font of this one verse was larger and darker than all the others on the page. At that point I realized God was trying to tell me something and I needed to pay close attention.

The verse was Psalm 116:11. I was reading from the NIV which reads as follows:

"And in my dismay I said, all men are liars."

The part that really jumped off the page was actually, "all men are liars." By drawing my attention to this particular piece of scripture, God was revealing to me a problem I had in my heart. God saw a heart issue that I needed to be made aware of so that I could deal with it and then enjoy a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him.

Everyone has had their share of problems growing up and I am no exception. I have been targeted by men with inappropriate sexual desires. This began at around the tender young age of 11. My childhood innocence was robbed by men seeking to satisfy their own evil desires. No one ever came to my rescue, not even God. That is how I felt. I had received Jesus into my heart at a young age and I often asked God, why did you allow this to happen to me?

In an effort to make sense about what had happened and in order to protect myself in the future, I made a vow. I vowed never to allow a man to get close enough to hurt me again. I told myself, "No man can ever be trusted!" My father hadn't been there to protect me as I thought he should be. He didn't come to my rescue. How could he? My parents were separated. I felt that if my parents had not been separated, this man would not have had the opportunity to be alone with me as he did.

The feeling of abandonment by my father grew deeper after this happened. I had already felt abandoned by my father. First, I had felt rejected and abandoned because I had been born at a time in his life when he was not ready to be a father and a child feels that. Second, He then chose alcohol over our family which led to my parents splitting up.

Back to that piece of scripture. After reading over that piece of scripture several times, my Heavenly Father spoke to my heart. He said, "When you made that vow as a young girl, you included me." I was in shock. He was right. I never realized that before but He was absolutely right. I had blamed God for allowing that to happen to me. I had blamed my earthly father too for not being there to protect me. I repented and I cried.

When I made that vow with myself to never trust another man, it kept me from trusting my Heavenly Father. "All men cannot be trusted," that was my version of the truth. Satan planted that lie in my head and I continued to believe that lie for many, many years. Now I know that believing the lie Satan planted in my head as my version of the truth only brought destruction and sorrow. God exposed Satan's lie and revealed the truth. God's truth brings healing to my soul and life to my spirit. Since I was eagerly seeking a close relationship with God, I was feasting on His Word (the bible) every day. And in doing so, He revealed the truth and it set me free from the lies that I had been believing for so long. I used to feel so afraid, ashamed and tainted, but now I feel safe and loved, secure and free. Just like it says in His Word, John 8:31,32:

"If you abide in My Word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

You know, there is a direct correlation between a person's relationship with their earthly father and their relationship with their Heavenly Father. I have been seeking a deeper relationship with my Heavenly Father and He pointed out this heart issue so that I could deal with it and have that relationship that I was seeking. Yes, it was hard to revisit that time in my life, but He knew I was ready and I was ok because He was walking me through it.

I now know everything that happens in life is God-filtered. I also know we live in a fallen, broken world, full of sin and decay. Because of this and man's free will, man can make choices, either for good or for evil. I also know that God can use anything in life. He can take those awful, painful experiences from the past and turn them into something that can be used for good. That is exactly what He has done here. Because He has walked me through this process, I am now able to share my experiences with others. I am no longer afraid or ashamed to talk about it and in doing so, I am giving others the freedom and courage to do the same. I have heard Joyce Meyer say, "What we hide has power over us" and that is so true.

Being A Blessing

I have noticed something. Over the past summer, I have been periodically asking God to place someone in my path that He can bless through me. This has been very effective. God has been answering those prayers rather quickly and revealing to me people in need and how I can help. There is a sense of joy and accomplishment when I allow God to use me as His vessel. Just knowing God can use me and show me how to bless others in such a variety of ways gives me such a feeling of peace.

When I ask God to place someone in my path, no more than two or three days pass before I find someone that has a need that I can meet and then I joyfully meet it. What an awesome, rewarding experience to be used by God. I highly recommend it. I think I am hooked for life. A word of caution though, if you are going to ask God to place someone in your path that He can bless through you, make sure you mean it with all of your heart because He will take you up on your offer. Sometimes it can happen when you least expect it or when it seems least convenient. God will require something from you. It may be your time, your money, your patience, your forgiveness, or some skill or talent you may have. Whatever is required of you, make sure you are ready and willing to meet that need when God reveals it to you.

Let me tell you a story about my most recent experience with blessing others. I was walking my dogs and talking to God as I like to do. I was asking God to place someone in my path again that He could bless through me. It was either that same evening or the next when my neighbor was knocking at my door. She said, “I hear you know who owns a ferret in the neighborhood.” I told her I do. She went on to tell me that she had a ferret visitor. She and her husband were watching television downstairs. Her Husky was in the basement with them cooling off as it was a very hot evening. She saw an animal peering in and scratching at her basement window. She asked her husband if it was a weasel. She mentioned how lucky this ferret was because if her dog had been outside, which he usually is, he would have killed it as he kills any small animal that enters the yard. She showed me the ferret which she had captured and placed in her large dog kennel. I took the ferret off her hands and brought him home with me.

I knew who owned this ferret. I had returned this ferret to the owners twice previously and I told myself if I found him loose a third time I would not be returning him as they are clearly not taking good care of him. I also knew from previous reports from various neighbors that had spotted him scratching at their basement windows wanting to come inside, that he had been neglected. I have a real heart for animals and I cannot stand to see an animal being abused, mistreated, neglected or abandoned.

When I brought him home with me, I had every intention of keeping him only for the weekend until the SPCA was open. I knew his chances of being adopted would be good since he is an exotic pet and very friendly. Once I brought him into my home, I found out he was not litter trained. I guess if he was roaming around outside all of the time he wouldn’t be. Since this ferret did not come with a cage, I had no way of containing the area in which he roamed in my home. I would be cleaning up one puddle only to turn around and find another. I had to keep my eyes on him at all times. This was not easy and this was time consuming.

Now I had to figure out what ferrets eat. I joined a ferret forum online, found out what he eats and bought him some food. He would not eat it. It seems that he has never been fed ferret food and does not recognize it as food. I did, however, find him scrounging around inside my cupboards looking for scraps of food to eat. Surprise, surprise, he can open and close cupboard doors with ease....lol. Sadly, I have a feeling this is how he survived in his previous home when he wasn’t hunting for his own food outside.

He was malnourished and needed some nutritious food as quickly as possible. Luckily, the ferret forum coached me through this process and told me I had to make him “Duke Soup.” No, it is not made with ducks, it is actually a chicken soup with ferret kibble mixed in and liquified in a blender. Then I had to roll him up tightly in a towel, fill a syringe with duck soup, pry his mouth open and force it down his throat. Lucky for me, after he tasted the duck soup, he decided it was good and he started to lick it off the syringe as I squeezed it. He now eats it off of a plate. Now I have to gradually wean him off the duck soup until he will eat his regular dry kibble. The SPCA would not have had the time to do any of this. During this feeding process we bonded, I fell in love with the little guy and could not give him up.

You may be asking yourself what all of this has to do with being a blessing to someone. I do believe that when I asked God to send me someone He could bless through me, he sent me “Duke.” My son has since named him Duke. He gets this name because he makes a ferret sound called “dooking.” Yes, I believe that God wanted me to care for this ferret. He did, after all, create him and he knew that I would have the patience, time and ability to meet his needs and nurse him back to health. I must say, this is the first time God has ever placed a furry critter in my path when I have asked him to show me someone I could bless.

A couple of weeks later, Duke was trying to play with one of my cats. My cat slapped him and poked him in the eye. After a visit with the vet, I found out his eye had been punctured and he was now blind in this eye. Poor Duke. He survives the elements outside: rain, wind, cats, dogs, trains, traffic and who knows what else only to come into my home and lose his eye. The vet informed me that he needed his eye removed as soon as possible and in the meantime I had to administer two different types of eye drops, one to prevent infection and one for pain relief. She also informed me that the surgery for this, which would be done at the University Small Animal Clinic, would cost anywhere between $600-1000. Money I don’t have. I felt so bad for poor Duke. I began to question myself and wonder if I did the right thing by keeping him, maybe God had wanted me to return him. I started to feel guilty and sad.

At this point I ran to God with my problem. I gave it all over to him. I told him I was feeling guilty, sad, bad and overwhelmed with the impending surgery and the costs involved. I told Him I was questioning whether I did the right thing by keeping him. I told Him that the devil was telling me it was all my fault and that I was supposed to return him, etc. As quickly as I ran to God with my problem, He answered. He said, “Remember in my Word how I said, “It is better to lose an eye than for your whole body to be thrown into hell?” Well, in this case, it is better that Duke loses his eye than his entire life. He would have suffered a worse fate than this had you not taken him under your wing.” Immediately I was filled with peace and I knew I had heard from God.

I picked up the phone and called the University to do some price research of my own. I left a message for one of the doctors to call me. When he returned my call, I asked him how much it would cost to have an eye removed for a ferret. He told me between $150-200. I was in absolute shock. This price was much lower than the price the vet had given me earlier. I asked him if he was sure. He put me on hold, went to double check and returned, assuring me that was the correct price. I could not believe it. I was in awe. I knew God had taken care of the situation. As quickly as I gave it to Him, He took care of it. How awesome is that? Duke has since gone to the University to have his eye examined for surgery. The vet there didn’t see any need at that time to remove his eye, but wanted to see him in a week or so. She said 99% of the time their eye has to be removed, but Duke could be in that rare 1%. Through this process, God was also teaching me how to cast my cares onto Him.

The very next day I was reading my “Daily Bread” devotions for the day. The title was perfectly suited for what I was going through. Nevermind the title, the whole devotion was relevant to my situation. God often uses the “Daily Bread” devotions to send me confirmation about something that is going on in my life. It was titled, “Finders Keepers,” isn’t that funny? It talked about how sometimes when you see injustice or abuse going on around you and you look for someone to do something about it and then you realize God is looking at you to do something about it. Just as Moses was God’s answer for the slavery of His people in Egypt, I was the answer for the neglect and abuse that was going on with Duke. Of course, my situation is on a much smaller scale but you get the idea. It went on to talk about how God places us in unique circumstances where our abilities match the problem that He wants to fix. I received the message loud and clear, this “Daily Bread” was my confirmation that I did the right thing by Duke.

Here are a couple of pictures of Duke.

God Wants To Be Included In The Big And The Small Decisions

On Friday evening, January 4th, 2008, I was sitting at the kitchen table reading through the classifieds. I decided to see if there were any Treadmill’s for sale. I had been wanting a treadmill for awhile. When my friend Terry had asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told him money because I wanted to save up to buy myself a used treadmill. He was kind enough to oblige. I stashed his money away until the time came to buy a treadmill. I wasn’t normally looking in the paper for treadmills because I knew if I found one, I wouldn’t have enough money to buy it yet and I knew I needed someone to go look at it for me and pick it up.

This particular Friday evening I decided to look anyway. I found one new ad that was selling a treadmill. On Saturday morning, I decided to call and get some details. It was a year old, never been used, just sitting in the basement. It was a free spirit sears model. It had all sorts of features, a fan, pulse, calories, miles, up to 10/mph, up to 10% incline, cup holder and book holder. It was also a fold up type. I looked up similar models in the Sears catalogue. It looked like it would be a very nice treadmill.

They were asking $800.00 o.b.o. It was originally $1,300.00. I asked her if she would take $600.00 cash. She said if someone I know had a truck and could come and pick it up then sure. This was a good price I felt. I thought about it some more. I was still unsure as this is still a large investment for me. I also wanted to be sure I don’t buy something that won’t work very well or something I won’t use much.

I decided to pray about it. I didn’t know if the Lord would help me with this decision since it isn’t all that important. I prayed about it anyway and asked Him if he could let me know if I should go ahead with this or not and then I put those thoughts aside.

Now it was time to read the daily devotions with Justin. Justin read the scripture part from his bible and I began to read the “Daily Bread” part. This is how the devotions began for this particular Saturday morning:

I walked as fast as possible. Worked up
quite a sweat, in fact. After about a mile,
I broke into a jog and then ran as hard as
I could. Finally, after about 25 minutes, I
stopped. My heart was pounding, my shirt
was soaked, but I had gone nowhere, I had
just done miles on the treadmill.

I could not believe what I was reading. The very day I prayed about confirmation on whether I should buy this treadmill or not and there it was in black and white. I was somewhat surprised that the Lord had answered my request for help on this decision. God so often uses the devotional stories from “Our Daily Bread” to answer my questions or speak words of encouragement to me. This was the confirmation I needed.

I went ahead and made the plans. Gerry (ex-husband) had a truck and he was willing and available to pick it up the next morning. I had enough money since my GST cheque had also came in which is like unexpected cash, cash I don’t rely on. Everything fell into place very nicely; I knew it was blessed by God. They could have easily sold it before I had a chance to send Gerry over there. They could have refused to lower their price.

I am now the proud owner of a very nice treadmill. Now I can keep up my walking regime over the winter. I have placed it close to the TV and I like to walk while watching TV or reading.

God is so amazing and so good to me. He is my loving father and I am so glad I can go to Him and ask Him for help in not only my major life decisions but also in all of my decisions. I am so blessed.

If you have ever wondered if God cares about the seemingly smaller decisions in your life, He does, He absolutely does. He wants you to include Him in every part of your life, every moment of your life, big or small.