THE CONUNDRUM OF WOMANHOOD

After two years of deep Bible Study, I had a realization that a lot of my knowledge was going to waste because I was not also grasping a lot of realities of life.  Application is important and I had narrowed my application to gaining knowledge without wisdom.  You may not believe where I went to gain some insight on wisdom:  Christian fiction.  I believe that the people who write these books do it as a tribute to God and an outreach to people who might not otherwise see what Christian thinking looks like under pressure.  I have previously actually quoted from some of these books.  They are a balm for my tension ridden body and a sweet tea for my mind.

The one I am thinking about right now, having just finished it, deals with women caught up in the Civil War.  It is not for the faint at heart because it takes place right in the middle of the action.  One sees herself as an ugly woman raised by three older brothers and confident in male skills like fist fighting and sharp shooting.  She joins the war as a man and we follow her through some pretty horrible situations.

The other woman is a single Southern Belle raised in the society of the rich and proper in Virginia where some went north to fight and others went south.  They were split on that.  But they were not split on the proper behavior and goals for a Belle.  Finding a good husband was the number one priority for every proper society woman in the south.  She ran away and became a nurse during the war and what she saw and did is also not for the faint of heart.

But the story is exceptionally inspirational in very real ways to the faint of heart.  And I have been just that lately so I have chosen to share a change of mind that I have had because of reading this book:

I will continue writing this blog and I will go ahead with my political blog, but it will be with a much different tone than I was planning.  It will be a more humble plea for sanity, than the scorching tirade that I had in mind.  God is good and God will show us the way when we actually let Him!

Through everything that these women did right and did wrong we find them growing in their love for Him and working constantly in His love for them.  We also see the web of lies that got them into the war come between them and their hopes and then turn around to prove that God can make all things right for those who love Him.  The book was well worth reading.

It is the plight of the Belle that intrigued me most.  Each woman was expected to “find” a good husband and settle down into life as his property and his porcelain doll, looking great and doing mostly nothing, not even dressing herself let alone raising her own children. I was shocked to realize how far this is from what God wants a marriage to be. It does not even come under that shadow of Proverbs 31.  But history was full of this:  Consider Solomon and his 300 wives and 700 concubines, none of whom got any husbandly attention after the first glow.  Or Esther who could not even approach her husband to ask a question without fearing being put to death.  Our Belle actually attempted to discuss her feelings with her fiancé and was reprimanded angrily for doing so.

Today we celebrate that we have come a long way, but the truth in most homes is that nothing has really changed except the right to argue and scream day and night in front of the children and the neighbors. Many men, not just the rich, still see women as a prize that must be shown off as an extension of themselves, and kept at their beck and call.

Having the right to be a person aside from a husband or even without a husband can be a good gain and has been for many, many women.  But winning the right to kill children is not.  Being able to work outside the home is deemed good, but is questionable since it was part of the driving force that now makes that a necessary part of life.  And, once again, women are leaving the raising of their children to others, giving the children a few minutes of their time in the evening, often running them around to activities rather than actually being with them, and a bit more serious time on the weekends if they are not off visiting their father.

All I am trying to say here is that being a woman is a balancing act of keeping our personhood and our promises to God in following Him, and performing our duties to husband and family.  Women today have a challenge to be submissive to their husbands in their faith and obedience and still keep their personal relationship with God first in their lives. 

Does that shock you when I say “God first?”  The Belle was shocked, too, when she realized that marriage might not be God’s first choice for her if it would remove her from God’s will for her to serve Him as a nurse.  When she surrendered to God’s will, she was in for a beautiful surprise. But she could have ruined it all with the wrong choice.

May we all be choosing God’s will for us first, over every other choice that comes our way, no matter how confused we may become about the consequences of making that choice. And may we be patient as God works out the details of getting us to where He wants us, not running ahead but not staying behind either. May we find great Joy in the fact that God loves us enough to see us as individuals in His family and guides us individually through life, even as our lives are intricately tied up with other lives. And, may we thank God that we are women of great value to Him.

An email tid-bit:

SUPER WOMAN 1.  DOES 2.  Tries to impress 3.  Is controlled by an agenda 4.  Her self worth is found in her accomplishment 5.  Her peace is found in a perfect environment 6.  She is discouraged by failure 7.  She expects perfection from herself and others 8.  Teaches her kids to be good. 9.  She is frustrated with her lack of spiritual fruit 10.  She does things with her children 11.  Her perspective is based on what is seen 12.  She chooses quantity of activities

ABIDING WOMAN 1. IS 2. Pleases the Lord 3. Is controlled by the Holy Spirit 4. Herself worth is found in an accurate view of who she is in Christ Jesus 5. Her peaces is found in Jesus in the midst of any storm 6. Failure reminds her that faith is made perfect in weakness. 7. She practices grace with herself and others 8. She teaches her kids to be Godly 9. She abides in Christ and bears much fruit 10. She builds a relationship with her children 11. Her perspective is based on what is unseen 12. She chooses the most excellent way.

GOD GAVE THEM OVER

I have been a little uptight lately over the state of the souls in this country.  I am not evangelistically inclined and do not run the streets shouting that the wrath of God is I here (though maybe I should), so I have been hurting a little over how to help pull our feet out of the mud, without loosing our shoes in the process.  And then I think that loosing our shoes may not be all that bad, depending on what we are using our shoes for.  Are we using our shoes to separate ourselves from and walk away from the mud of this world or are we using them to feel more comfortable stepping right into that mud of the world around us?

Perhaps we all need to go back to Romans 1:18-32 and refresh ourselves over God’s view and God’s wrathful judgment of “giving them over” to the sins they so heartily seek after: (And by “them” I mean “us, Americans.”)  The picture is as graphic as any you have ever seen and is explicit about what God sees us doing and what God brings on because of what He sees. And for some reason, I am suddenly calmer when I understand that God has “given us over.”  It is not simply the “work of the devil” that we are fighting, it is the wrath of God Himself beginning the destruction of this once proud country.

The list is long and pointed and undeniably American as read from beginning to end.  Yes, it was intended for Rome about Rome, but Rome is only one proud country of distinguished world control that has followed in these same footsteps.  And America is not the only modern country doing so, either.  But it is America where I live, and America that I have loved and rooted for all these years so it is America that I am concerned about right now.  And it is the Christians in America that I am praying will see the truth about how much garbage we are really not only putting up with, but participating in and approving of these days.

“Although they knew [better] – although they claimed to be wise:

God gave them over… in the sinful desires their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

God gave them over to their shameful lusts.

God… gave them over to a depraved mind.

And they “not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them.” 

I do not want to beat a dead horse to death here, but how careful are we with our minds?  Really.  How careful are we.  Do we have any awareness in us of selecting what we listen to, watch, or read according to standards that we feel we need to follow.  Do we try to keep our shoes out of the mud or do we just jump right in because what we listen to, watch, or read is always the Next Big Thing in popularity?   

Do we live with any “filters” at all, especially if we do not have children in the room?  And, if we do have children in the room “up through finally married,” do we discuss with them how to filter their own selections or how to deal with things that surprise them; things they wish they had not seen or know that they should not have seen?

Personally, my major filter is sexual, or implied sexual behavior.  I am a single woman who has been married and the last thing I need is an enlivened libido.  And the not yet married do not need that either.  So I make choices based like this:  NCIS and CIS have been faithful to keep sexual behavior to a minimum and it mostly is seen briefly as the reason for the evil done and it is rewarded with wrath in the end.  I watch those. Chicago Fire, which I had hoped would be a good show, turned out to be all about the sex lives of the firemen (male or female).  I don’t watch it.  I also avoid (like the plague) all fictional “reality” shows because they are the very things that are the subjects of these lists in Romans.

Again, we all make our own choices.  I am not making my choices a list of choices you should make.  I am just saying that we all need a guideline in our heads as we make our choices so that we can be careful to not fill our minds with depravity.  And that goes for facebook as well.  I have come to realize that even the good side is depicting seriously unsubstantiated material about the “wrong” side and I have stopped looking at the majority of what comes my way. 

May we all be vigilant and ready to make choices for a sound mind.  And may we be diligent to pass these filters on to the next generation so that they too will be vigilant in protecting their own minds.  May we be careful to discuss the opportunity to make these choices as we live together with those we love and seek to help them follow God’s way, The Way, Jesus Christ.

Side note:  The real beauty of this country still exists and can be found on Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes, two of the oldest continuing programs on television and still reporting the people and places of this country from the heart rather than from the dollar value.  :)

THE BIGGEST LIE WE TELL OURSELVES

This morning I find myself crying over some very interesting things.  One is that my life has been centered around me in spite of my wanting it centered around God.  The fact that my heart breaks over things happening to people I love seems to be centered around how it affects me, rather than around how it affects them

I couple of women I love are having a really hard time dealing with actually submitting to God’s Love and direction.  One has my attention nearly everyday on facebook.  Her posts are breaking my heart.  But I came to realize this morning that my pain is in her disregard of my love for her and my efforts to help her learn.  That is a selfish, me centered, feeling.  Seeing her still so desperate for Love should make me hurt for her, not for me.  It should send me to my knees in prayer, not to my thoughts of how I would like to ring her neck and shake her shoulders until she gives in to God.

When my life was on spin cycle, during the early years of rehabilitation and recovery from a life completely controlled by anger, she was there struggling, too.  We leaned on each other in many ways, even though our addictions seemed to be totally different.  We became very good friends and I helped to see her through some really rough times.   Even though she could not really be there for me, emotionally, she remained my friend and we struggled together trying to pull our lives out of the stream of garbage and into the river of living water that had always been there for us.

But the time came when her desperate need was diminished by finishing up her legal obligations and she began to take her life back into her own hands.  Two things, maybe three, kept her from growing in Christ from then on:  One, she was totally back into the life she had been living before the legalities kept her from it.  Second, she was totally back with all the people who had encouraged the life she had been living.  Third, she was angry.  She was so angry that fire spit from her mouth when she talked about the things that were going on.  She not only returned to drinking, she returned to drugs. 

Then there was a respite because they were caught with the drugs and the drug paraphernalia in the house where they were raising their beautiful daughter.  They shaped up quickly and began to pay attention to things so that their daughter would not be taken from them.  They were on probation and they had to follow the rules.  When probation was over, things fell apart quickly. They were both very angry people and they resorted once again to drowning out reality through drinking and drugs.  They both blamed each other for the truth of this collapse in their lives.

They screamed and yelled and taunted one another constantly, in front of that beautiful daughter, in front of the “sons’ that were part of a very mixed up family and in front of friends and nieces and nephews and neighbors, and, finally, in front of the world on facebook.

My own parents did the same in front of me and my brother whenever they got drunk.  That was every weekend.  We were forever changed by that – a long story in itself – so I shuddered to think what was going on in the young ones heads and hearts through all of this.

So we drifted apart.  It broke my heart but we stayed in touch on facebook and I have been privileged, along with others, to watch this train wreck in action.  Once I even told her that all I was seeing was her living life exactly as she always had, with just a touch of God for decoration.  She agreed that might be true but continued with her life as usual.  And her salvation was through her anger; more and more anger.

And she, like the rest of us, blames everyone and everything else for her anger.  Well if he didn’t… I wouldn’t.  Well if they would just… I would….  Well if that hadn’t happened… I wouldn’t have….  He/She/They/It MADE ME MAD.  Nonsense.  That is the biggest lie of all time. NOTHING can make us angry.  We choose to be angry and the only way to get our anger under control is to take inventory asking the question:  What am I really angry about?  If we do not do that there will never be “Anger Management” in our lives.

Why am I speaking of this, this morning?  As I said, I am crying for her today.  God has shown me that my own interests and the cooling of my heart toward her have been for very selfish reasons: I feel betrayed by her behavior.  I am disappointed that she has not taken a cue from me and worked out her anger so that she could let God love her and love others through her. I am frustrated by the rut she has fallen into and the fact that she is no longer caring what I think. Who in the world am I, anyway?  It is not my feelings I need to be concerned about.  It is God’s grace and salvation for her that I should be concerned about.  It is the Peace and Joy and Longsuffering that God provides for her and she refuses that I should be thinking about.  My feelings are totally irrelevant to this situation.  It is her heart that matters here, not mine.

Do you have anger that you need to deal with?  Do you love someone who is out-of-control with anger and it breaks your heart OR “makes you” angry back at them?  We all must remember that though we cannot live in the past, we must take time to remember it and to deal with it in such a way that we are sure we are not living in it anymore.  Our past is what shaped our present and we must make sure that it is not holding us back from our future.

May we all take a look at how quick our trigger is and what sets us off for choosing anger over peace.  May we also take a careful look around us at others we may be destroying by our own outbursts of angry, destructive words.  God would have us live in love; His love. And He would have us seeking control over our feelings of hurt and insult and diminution, trusting Him to make these things right, and asking Him to help us love and forgive those who hurt us.

And may we also realize that it is not outside forces that make us mad.  It is our choice to react in anger or in love.  And when our choice is naturally to be angry, we can still turn to God to change our minds; the sooner the better.

May you all have a sweet day of love today as you seek God’s Pleasure in you..

DO YOU HAVE A DREAM?

It has occurred to me on several occasions that as a child, teenager, and even a young adult I did not have a dream.  I remember very carefully avoiding all things “dreamish.”  I do not have any idea why, except that I had a very deep inferiority complex.  I figured that my life was enough of a failure for me without adding to it dreams that were destined to fail as well.

Then, today, I heard a discussion about the “lucky people” in life vs the “unlucky.”  One line of thinking considered that people made their own luck by sheer force of attitude, getting up every morning with a smile and great expectations for the day.  The other seemed to follow the idea of “those who dreamed of what they wanted to have in their lives and set their minds and feet to reaching that goal” were the ones who actually achieved and there was no luck involved at all.  No dreams unfortunately means no goals.

This comes up now because of a recent sermon which discussed how God sees us compared to how we see ourselves.  The example used was that of a caterpillar and a butterfly.  When tested, caterpillar DNA is butterfly DNA.  The caterpillar is a butterfly even though it cannot fly and does not look beautiful like a butterfly. 

I cannot help but wonder if the caterpillar was able to think and emote, would it be as disillusioned with its own life as I always have been with mine?  Would it see only the plainness and seemingly endless nothingness of life as many of us do?  It surely would not know that better things would come and that it would be beautiful to all one day.  It surely would not dream of making that happen by simply walking the path ahead of it.

The point of the allegory was that God sees us as butterflies even though we are still caterpillars and we should see ourselves that way, too.   Through the blood of Christ we are made new.  Our new birth, which we tend to think of as an allegory, is an actual fact.  When we receive Christ as our savior, our DNA changes.  No scientist may be able to prove that, but God knows it and He knows it well.  We are not only empowered to live a life fully different from our old life, God is enabled to see us only through the blood of Christ, a shield that makes us beautiful in His sight while protecting us from His wrath.  We are seen to be as beautiful as Christ because we are seen through Christ.

I can think of reasons why this is and should be, but I can also counter every single one of them.  It is easy to laugh at that and shrug it off because we all know that we are beautiful in Christ and that we have full hope of one day being with Him… etc.  But, the truth is, there are many of us out here to whom these promises are cloudy and not quite applicable in our daily lives.  We have tremendous reservations about the capabilities of achieving dreams.

Yes, I know and they know that these thoughts come from Satan not from God.  But these are life long inhibitions for us and a life long struggle.  We all have triggers that bring on the struggles, mostly having to do with our own impressions of what we seem be, or what our value actually is to others around us.  And when we are struck with these doubts about our selves and our self worth, the pain is very real..  A knife in the gut is a knife in the gut.  Even if we can pray our way out of the depths that we suddenly find ourselves in; even if the knife is removed in a matter of minutes the pain is very real and lingers long after.

Now I have a picture to call on to help me realize how God sees me whenever I begin to fall.  But I suspect that I, and some of my friends and yours, could use some serious support and prayer over this situation. Therefore…  May we all find the will and desire to see ourselves as God sees us and become more excited about our own lives as we live them out for Him and Him alone.  And may we dream of great possibilities no matter where we are in life with Him: at the beginning, in the last hour or so, or somewhere in the middle on our way to seeing Him soon.  “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”  Hug us tight this day and use us for spreading your love as a blessing to others.

TEMPTING: A WAY OF LIFE

I was reading this morning about Satan temping Jesus in the desert following His baptism; and suddenly I was thinking of how often we tempt one another, let alone God.  We all know that Jesus rebuked Satan with these words, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord your God.”  Later translations say, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” but I really like the old King James Version on this one.  THOU SHALT NOT.  Pretty strong words.  And yet we seem to do it with impunity over and over again as we keep doing what we think is best for us, rather than doing what He thinks is best for us.

The thing is that tempting each other has also become something we do with impunity.  And it starts in childhood.  Mom says, “No!”  Child does.  Mom says, No” again. Child does.  We even call this “testing.”  “How far can I go before things get serious,” is the big question.

I have very fond memories of Steve’s first grandson doing just that with me.  When he was barely a toddler, they came to visit us in our townhouse in Las Vegas.  Our “yard” was an enclosed patio that barely had room for the roses and bulbs that we planted around the already existing tiled patio space.  Not much room for a toddler, so I took him outside the gate to play in the common area grass.  There was a street passing by which was very quiet, but a street nonetheless.  As he played he started getting closer and closer to the street and then ran right up to it, looking at me to see what I would do.  I, of course, told him “No,” in very strong terms.  He turned back to the grass.  After about three or four times doing that, I said nothing and just looked at him with a “stern” look.  He watched me for a moment and then turned on his own and ran back into the grass.  We smiled at each other as I told him what a good boy he was.  He did not go near the street again.

Another time, we were visiting in their home in Washington and I was watching him and his baby sister who was just a few weeks old.  They had a big yard, but it was not fenced and he could not be out there alone.  The patio door was open because they had no window screens and the family room needed serious relief from the heat.  As I was tending to the baby, he kept going over to the door and darting out.  He made me get up and come to the door after him before he would come back in.  We did that game for about three times.  The fourth time I just looked at him and said, “Would you like to close that door now?”  He grinned and eagerly closed the door.  He never went near it again that evening.  It takes me awhile, but I catch on eventually. :)

All of that to say, “Children, do not tempt your parents (or other authority figures like Grandma.)  And yet they do and we do.

Take the typical family argument, sibling to sibling or spouse to spouse;  What is really happening during those common confrontations?  We like call it “pushing each others buttons.”  I have come to see it as “tempting” each other.  “How far can I go?” again becomes the big question.  Some of this is just a part of growing up and even playing around.  But, way too often, it becomes a struggle of will and words that rises to wrath and soon everything gets out of hand.  We learn early how easy it is to make our opponent angry by bringing up junk from the past; and as the arguing escalates we find ourselves attempting to draw blood on the other person.  There is no good that comes from this type of “tempting” and attempting.  (Note here:  there is also no good that comes from allowing someone else to verbally abuse us, but that is another story not involving pushing back in wrath.)

Sometimes we excuse this kind of verbal sparing as good exercise or just the way we communicate.  But it certainly is not the way God would have us communicate.  As we are throwing lobs of past sins at people, God is wondering what we are talking about because he has forgotten that persons past sins (if that person has repented of them.)  We have kept the information for ammo in arguments.  And we learned it as children when sparing with our parents or hearing them spar with one another. 

God has clearly told us to love one another and to forgive one another and to carry out our lives loving others as we are loved by Him.  He tells us, He shows us, He writes it on our hearts and gives us the Holy Spirit to help us.  And yet we ignore all of that and resort to “tempting” at every turn.

Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, but He never expressed anger or wrath to Satan.  He kept His temper in check because this was not the time for His final victory over Satan. He simply told Satan what His Father had instructed his people over the centuries:  Thou salt not tempt the Lord your God.  Sometimes we desperately need to draw on the water and the feast we have eaten from His Word and simply respond in love:  His love.

May we all pray for strength to resist the temptation to tempt others into anger.  And may we also resist the temptation to tempt others to do what they feel is wrong for them in that moment:  Like eating that piece of cake they are trying to avoid. :)  Have a great day with your Lord!

THE WORLD’S GREAT PROSTITUTE

To Ezekiel God said, “Confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices….”  He went on to describe the beginnings of Jerusalem (Israel) were quite common and she was not anything special at the time…. “(you were) thrown out into an open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.”

“Then I passed by and saw you… I made you grow like a plant in the field… you became the most beautiful of jewels.”  He goes on to relish in the care and “makeover” He gave to them and says “So you were adorned… You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty…

“But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute.”

Are you tingling, yet, with a sense of how well this is describing the U.S.? Let’s see what else He has to say…

“You lavished your favors on anyone who would pass by and your beauty became his… You also took the jewelry I gave you… the food I provided… your sons, your daughters…” and “sacrificed” (gave) them to others.

“Was your prostitution not enough?  Woe. Woe to you…. offering your body with increasing promises to anyone who passed by.... Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors.  So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors.  You are the very opposite for you give payment and none is given to you”

To understand how this affects us today and how it shaped history itself, we must remember this very important fact:  Jerusalem was the Gold Standard for all to see and Israel was the Blueprint to help all countries see how they must follow God and not turn from Him if they wanted to survive. Jerusalem (Israel) was not taken out of this world to live for God; they were left right in the midst of the world so as to draw the world into also believing in their God.

This NOT a setting-aside of a prophecy to Israel for any other country to take on as directed at them for some special reason.  ALL countries were always encouraged to “Turn from (their) wicked ways and repent and follow God” and to become a pattern after the one He set for Israel.  Israel was intended to be His light to the World and would eventually provide the true light through Jesus Christ.  But every single country was invited to follow.  When coming to America most of the population had done just that and they chose to set their feet on that solid ground. 

Just this morning I was reminded of the tours our current president takes and his determination to ask the world to forgive us for being us.  And right now our government is struggling with this problem:  How do we keep Egypt happy and friendly (really?) while not failing to keep our own law about not giving money to governments which have been overthrown by their own military.  Now therein lies a true dilemma.  How much more can we prostitute ourselves in the Middle East?  And how much more can we spend outside our country while asking China, our sworn enemy, to loan us a few bucks here and there so we can keep up our habit of prostitution. 

All money going to assist enemy countries who declare hatred for us is bribery money; and it does us no good at all. And all the things we do to dumb down this country, so that others will not hate us, is outright prostitution of this country.  Every time we take another freedom from ourselves we prostitute the constitution of this country and become the laughing stock of our enemies.

Christians must begin to speak up.  We must begin to take a chance on being hated for what we say.  And we must take whatever comes from those actions even as Christ and His Apostles did as they spread the Word among those who loved it and among those who hated it.  And they were despised by the haters.

I actually wrote this page intending to add it to a new blog I want to start about political opinion, but this is truly pertinent to us at this very minute and we need to see with our eyes wide open how far we have come from the America we intended to be.  We are as much a prostitute before God as Israel ever was.  And He will take care of this problem if we do not.

Lord, may we be given eyes to see, not only what is happening around us, but how we are helping it happen by keeping quiet and preferring not to offend and be hated.  May we now speak up against the mess this country has become.  And may we seek ways to bring the people of this country back to You and Your ways for Jesus sake. Amen.

BREATHE, BREATHE, BREATHE

Dear friends, I have fallen in love… with Ultra Sounds.  I have had four, for four different reasons and everytime I come away awed to the bone about how fabulous our Creator created us.  He is truly amazing and worthy of our worship if only for the delicate work He did on us.  We are truly, wonderfully and beautifully made.

I had one ultra sound last week, and once more I was struck with awe at how amazing our bodies are. The ultra sound I had confirmed again that we can never know too much about how our bodies work and how much we are greatly blessed to be able to see it working.  We were looking at the veins in my legs to see if there was evidence of damage or left-over blood clots from a pulmonary embolism episode that I had in 1984.  We went looking because I have been having trouble using my legs and this was one thing we wanted to check out.

Once again I was seeing and hearing the flow of blood through my body.  Trust me that this is a very exciting thing to do.  And many things can be discovered while doing it.  Not only is God’s intimate design for us revealed, but the very rush of the blood is celebratory of the Creator Himself.

I have had these tests taken for both my arteries and veins now.  My arteries passed with flying colors.  They got the highest score possible.  But, sure enough, my veins had a problem.  She found damage from the episode in 1984 and even the presence of a clot that never dissolved.  I was stunned.  But it was an eye opener about two mysteries in my life:  Why the clots had been in my lungs at all and why my right foot is fatter than my left foot. 

Funny thing is that while I was in the hospital for the embolisms, no one even mentioned my legs or took any pictures of them.   They just gave me blood thinner and kept an eye on my lungs.  Hmmm….  Sometimes you just don’t know what your doctors are not doing that they should be doing. But I recovered and have done fine until now. 

But here is the fun part of this whole thing.  The tech showed me that there are ways TO encourage blood flow through the veins back up to the heart.  If she pressed on my leg, I could see and hear a Swoosh response from the veins when the pressure was released.  Then she had me take deep breaths.  Again, a Swoosh, as the act of deep breathing pulled the blood up to my heart.  Wow!  Who knew that deep breathing was not just for heart and lungs, it is for “pulling” blood through the veins in a smooth and timely way.  That was stunning for me to find out. 

Then she had me do my favorite stretching exercise (Push my heels toward the wall) and Swoosh, there the blood went again, rushing up to my heart.  Ah ha, the pressure/release is the reason why we have to have the leg huggers on our legs when we wake up from an operation. And the deep breathing explains why we need to use a breather thingy (actual clinical term) to take deep breaths if we have had an operation and are in bed for awhile. Imagine that. There really is purpose behind those things we are asked to endure.

I am particularly fascinated with the deep breathing.  How easy is it (for those who can) to take deep breaths as part of a healthy living plan?  God breathed life into us. All we have to do to celebrate the life He gave us is to keep breathing, intentionally, for good health.  Athletes do it.  Singers and dancers do it. But we can’t all do the body movements that they do.  Even if we can’t, we can do something.  We can breath deeply just because we think to do it.  We can stretch our arms up, while breathing deeply and Swoosh the blood back to our lungs for the next round.  We can, when sitting or lying down, point our heels across the room stretching our calves and Swoosh the blood up our legs, back to our lungs for another round.  And, hey, we can exercise our feet while we have that position. Then, we can get up and walk as well as we can, if even for only a few feet. No more excuses.  We can do something to help our bodies work better.

But, again, the breathing… Yes, the breathing.  How does that relate to our spiritual life?  Genesis 2:7: the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  God breathed life into us in the beginning and we need to keep breathing in that life. 

Consider the song, “This is the Air I Breathe.”* It plainly presents the truth that eating and drinking God’s Word is not quite enough.  We must also breathe it in, deep breathing on a daily basis as we follow the paths we are on.

May we all be breathing deeply from the source of our lives and may we worship Him with every breath we take in and every breath we exhale.

P.S.  For those have trouble falling to sleep, try taking at least ten slow, deep, deep breaths in two rounds before rolling over to go to sleep.  Then let me know if you made it to ten.  : )  Seriously.  It worked for me.  And may you sleep better filled with the very breath God gave us.

*(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mEDcKZB7r2A)