Occupation?

Many times, I've looked on craigslist and in newpapers and various small circulars as well, looking for employment. I've applied several times. Traveled to places, filled out applications. I've spoken with a few of the employers themselves, but mostly have dealt with filling in the blanks and filling out online kinds of "surveys".
I have to confess, I have often ended up in tears. I've come to realize that somewhere inside, part of me believes my worth is degraded by this. It hurts. I don't even know where this blog is going, but hopefully, it will lead to hope.
I know there are many people who are "unemployed". I am one of them, though I work hard, and actually do so many things. I have been a stay home with the kids mom for over 32 years now. That's a long time. A few times in there I have had various jobs. They never paid enough to take the place of me at home. I was a real estate agent once, during a terrible downturn market in California years ago when real estate tanked. It was more of a hardship on my family to wait it out.
I am educated. I graduated from a Bible college, that though it is an excellent school, does not give degrees.
I read avidly, and am very self educated. I should say I'm an avid learner.
I'm a cheerful, innovative, humorous person, that's in good health and is reasonably attractive.
I am a fairly accomplished violinist, as well as an aspiring artist.
I actually liked being a waitress years ago.
I don't want to work alone.
I don't want to do child care, though I am highly skilled.
I don't want to deliver papers, nor walk someones dog.
I have the sales skills of a stone.
I am empathetic.
I am good at prayer.
I am anointed for counseling and the prophetic.
I am skilled in playing with other musicians.
I've decided it's almost a miracle that I can't get hired for anything, and so I've begun to ask God to bless my husband with at least an $8/hour raise. I am 100% sure he'll get a raise before I ever get a job.
I think God likes my company so much, that He keeps me to Himself. That's fine with me, but my husband would like my financial help. God, please give Duane a raise, and pay him more for me.
thanks.
PS. When that prayer gets answered, I'll let everyone know. It will get answered, somehow I know it for sure.

Like a Pebble in a Pond

I am not quite sure where to begin, I only know I must. God, Your Kingdom is so opposite to how we've lived in this universe. I am sure You are not in reverse, but rather our ways, though we're so accustomed to them, are opposite.

Amazing after all these years, for a revelation to come so strikingly over turning! You turned my life "upside down" again. My upside-down, is Your right side up!

Help me write Father, for even getting the concept out and having it turn the readers upside down, yet right side up, is not only my aim, but Yours. I am going to start with something so essential, so elementary, so simple, LOVE.

But first, a prayer for all of us:

Father, by a touch from You, a word dropped in our lives, like a pebble in a pond, ripples throughout our being. Let this word move into us and set us free and move in thorough grace to over turn our hearts and help us get used to living "right side up."

Prayers, loving prayers, through people whose hearts trust God, avail much. I was driving home the other night from a time of having been prayed for like this.

God was graciously already answering these prayers as I was driving home. I began to remember a time with my mom a couple of years before she died. I was babbling along as I was driving sharing my heart and vision and God thoughts and she began laughing in the back seat. I asked her what was funny and she said God just gave her a picture of Himself. He was walking along behind me, with messy hair looking slightly frazzed with a pencil behind His ear and one in His hand and a long list trailing behind Him, on which He was writing. She giggled and laughed for quite some time.

On the other hand, I thought to myself, How can that be God, He wouldn't be struggling to keep up with me? However, I began to realize the other night (at least 7 years since this happened) that this picture my mom had was a word from Him to her. It was filled with love to the heart of a mom, who had long prayed for her girl. He was showing my mom, in an enjoyably funny way to her, that I was doing well and He was enjoying His life with me. He was humbly, doing this without any care for His dignity, at all. It was for my mom's comfort and joy, God making a joke even about Himself, in order for my mom to really know something He wanted her to know, because He loves her, loves me too.

So, I started thinking about how humble God really is. Of course my life is not really a challenge to Him, but He loves my mom, more than dignity, even His own. He was speaking to her in a language just for her.

The next morning I woke up and was quietly having my coffee time with Him and I began pondering the humility of God, which is SO opposite to us. I was looking out at creation, the yard, air, the universe, everything. God made all these and didn't arrogantly stand up, pointing out how amazing He is to do it. Yet creation cannot hide that it was made by someOne astonishing.

An excerpt from my journal that morning:

"You (God) are so multi-layered with kindness and so utterly Holy Humble. It's a wonder we know You. You created the universe and everything in it so wonderfully, so beautifully unique, so rich in complex, abstract, Holy detail, so perfect really and it reveals a Maker who must be AMAZING! Yet what it speaks, instead of "Look at Me, How amazing I AM!" (which You are) It speaks, "I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!"

You pour out in Love and are revealed in majesty and wonder, but still You are not interested in Yourself being acknowledged. Yet, receiving such love, and knowing the source and being in awe of course, one is overwhelmed with a worship, an adoration of Your Dearest of Self.

Perfect Love from a pure heart doesn't really need recognition. Loving IS loves reward. Loving IS the most pleasurable activity for God.

Oh for me Father, let it be about love and being free.

The joy of love, is in loving.

Why do we, this includes You (God) love being loved?

"It is My pleasure to love."

So there is a pleasure in loving that I want to come to know with You. When we don't love for instance Lord, how does that affect You? Our lack of love for God doesn't impoverish Him. It impoverishes us. Any lack of love, impoverishes the one who is not loving. Our deepest need is not to be loved, but TO LOVE. WE NEED TO LOVE.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

And a lie will keep you, upside down and backwards from the Truth, if you believe your deepest need is to be loved. You will be set free when you realize your deepest need actually, to LOVE. WOW!!!

Loving out is loving in, and pouring out, is pouring in." (end of that journal entry)

God has always loved. The Trinity loves endlessly. The Three in One, the Godhead, loves, and in loving receives love, pure, holy perfectly, like a vortex of giving and receiving and giving, spinning in power, pure joy, forever. Out of this perfect relationship, love spun a universe, to love. Jesus dove into human flesh to love, to give. Holy Spirit poured out on this planet, to love.

We are invited into a love bond with Him, that is never ending and full of power, joy, pleasure, full satisfaction in every way. Our polarity needs to be reversed.

The commands of God are distilled down to: a)love God, with all you are and b) love you neighbour as yourself (also with all you are) this includes your enemy.

Why would there be such a command, if the hidden truth of life itself weren't somehow within it? The truth is we are opposite. We need our thinking, being, polarity reversed.

Why would God tell us to not lie? Our fallen-ness made lying seem normal and truth insurmountable and sublime. But lying is the false way that corruption seems to normalize.

Just like needing our love tanks filled before we can love, is not true. If we don't love, we will always have empty "love tanks." God has to show us our identity. He's the only One who knows it. We are created to love, in full communion with the love of the Trinity. Out of the deeps of that powerful loving is where our life-flow comes from. If we don't release love, we will dry up.

I'm not sure how to live this way as all my life habits are opposite, but I sure know this is a deep truth. It's like hitting the mother lode of all time, in a gold mine that never plays out. To LOVE, is to LIVE in the Kingdom.

When you are not the central object in your universe of person, then life aligns, joy flows, you are powered up and pleasure is the result. All our lives we've been living from a different paradigm, which confuses this truth. Because there is always a little loving out and some receiving of love, we have diagnosed our empty tank by saying we are not receiving enough. As in when you need to fill up a car with gas. The truth is, that the tank remains full as long as we are loving. Our emptiness is more a description of our expectation to get filled by others loving us.

By the way, we are endlessly, eternally, unfailingly loved in lavish Holy perfection, by God, we ought to never be empty, therefore we have impoverished our own selves by failing to realize that to fill the bank, is to release to others and everywhere, LOVE.

Loving God, fill us, with an endless, lavish, wealth of love. And, loving everyone else, including ourselves fills this earth around us and it flows in a vortex whose beginning is to give as fast as it's received, forever, a joyful amazing fellowship of bliss.

"We love Him, because He first loved us." 1John 4:19

He started this already in us, and with Him, it has always been so, for just as love never ends, it always has been. The act of loving is perpetual motion.

Selfishness is a slow, miserable form of suicide, like taking a low dose poison of misery day by day until all the lights go out.

Loving on the other hand is like drinking from an eternal fountain of youth, and growing stronger and freer and getting brighter and brighter forever.

This is blowing my mind. For God so loved, that He gave....everything

For the joy set before Him, He endured the suffering, the Cross....

Loving is not only God's joy, it is the wellspring of all joy. (another journal entry)

"Lord, I pray, everyday, that You would live loving through me, together with me. Let us together love, Wildly and as You and I love, lavishly, so let wholeness be a force, a hurricane force. I open a little door today, the door of my heart, an I let the hurricane out, His love and mine mixed, in a blend of joy to us both.

A hurricane changes landscapes. In the natural it wreaks destruction and turmoil. But a Holy Hurricane is utterly destructive to the dark, while life-restoring to the loved ones."

This journey will continue........:)

Still occupying the farm, wondering?......ideas wanted:)

It's February 25th, 2011. In the middle of winter break, already a week of vacation for my daughter Katie, I've declared a "snow day". This day had a full schedule when it began, but after clearing out the driveway, which was just as quickly filling up, driving down the road and stopping three times, before I'd gone a mile to clear the windshield wiper blades of swiftly forming ice, I decided that wisdom was saying, "go home"!

So, it's like being given an unexpected gift, wrapped in white, and chilled. The wind is at times intensely whirling, like a white tornado. It's so bad, both dogs are in the house, and these guys, are NOT inside dogs, (but they are really being very good.)

We are obviously still at the farm. It's not been rented yet. The longer I'm here, occupying, the more I hope for a different sort of solution. Many people have been interested in renting it, but.....for one reason or another, it still isn't.

I am asking for opinions, and perhaps one of you, or more, will be part of the solution. If we didn't have a mortgage on this place, that was still of a good size, we'd simply keep it and have it tended to, and then lend it out for others to use. It is way better than it looks, way sweeter and it is the sort of place that any family, couple, group of friends, etc. would love. I think if there was enough interest in having it as a furnished retreat, monthly, weekly vacation rental, that would be the ideal way of having it enjoyed and utilized to the full. I'm going to advertise and see if a local farmer wants to lease the fields for the next growing season, hoping for one that is interested in organic useage. I'd like it to become good grass pasture, and hay growing.

Please, post ideas and help me with prayers, wisdom, and possibly, some of you may want to rent it for holidays, retreats etc. If there is enough interest, the tide will turn in this direction.

THANK YOU ALL:)

To Be

At some point in my life, realizing that talking to God and listening to Him was vital, I began to write to Him. I didn't do this because I'm a particularly amazing writer, nor a deeply spiritual monk(ette:). I started to do this because I would wander off in thought and completely not be able to focus for longer than a quick prayer, and often would fall asleep too. As I've come along my timeline, and have intersected the pressures and trials of everyday life, some epic and some just little, I knew the desperation of need for Help from Him. It didn't really begin as a hunger for Him, just His help.

It's really become a lifestyle. I am a writer, in so many ways. I've been trained by writing to Him. So, starting my days, or any time really, on a piece of paper, my pen greets Him with; "Dearest Father" and so He is.

Occasionally, I look back at old "journals" and find some significant things in there amidst my life babbling along. Today, I thought I'd share some things from one of those journals.

September 15/07

Dearest Father,

Counsel me Lord, with the Counsel of Your heart.

"...do not fear making a mistake, more than you fear Me. If your trust is secure, is shall be well - Holy well. Trust gives Me a place to dwell and I Am ever so joyful. Your Trust becomes My Heaven in your "earth". Just as time is very relative, and not binding to Me, so is size..."

You stand outside of time and are knit within time, according to Love's Wisdom. You are immeasurable, and of any size, all at once. Yet You weave Yourself within the fabric of creation and nothing exists without Your threads.

There is something infinite about us, on the inside, something timeless, where time, aging and inability seem, unjust. The fall made all of us to be like animals born in a zoo, in captivity, never really being their real self, in all the freedom of just living as they were created. We are creatures made for a world not fallen, yet fallen we are and we do not know what and who we really are nor do we really know how to live. (Yet) There is something profoundly, singularly, magnificent about us humans.

Tree of Life,

By faith, in partaking of You,

I have eaten from the tree of Life

And, I am utterly not fallen

By the Blood's Life gift,

Cleansing gift,

Holy, Eternal, Life, Love,

I am not a prisoner

I am not a loser,

I am not lost,

No more bound,

But boundless,

Victorious,

Free,

The Tree of Life

Shed His Blood

For me.

He sees me and knows me

As I really am,

Though it be mystery to me,

The only way to know me

To walk free

Is to know Him.

Through a glass darkly

We see Him

We will be like Him

When the mystery is removed

When He appears,

What are we to Him?

He values nothing higher. (Is this true?)

We are Love's Holy Cause

Love's Holy Passion

Love's Holy Treasure.

"...See what (an incredible) quality of love the Father has given (shown, bestowed on) us, that we should (be permitted) be named and called and counted, the children of God! And so we are! The reason that the world does not know (recognize, acknowledge) us is that is does not know (recognize and acknowledge) Him.

Beloved, we are (even here and) now, God's children; it is not yet disclosed (made clear) what we shall be (hearafter) but we know that when He comes and is manifested, we shall resemble and be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He really is..." 1 John 3:1,2

(and here's another excerpt)

from September 30/07

Thank You, for doing wondrously, in me. I am, just like Jehovah, is I AM. Something in us needs to know You this way, hugely. I often say, "I don't know how to just "be", Lord, help me "BE".!

I am not in a role, nor is my life a script, with lines to memorize and with expectations to deliver on cue. I am a living being, in a creative flow, in unity with my Creator, my Friend, harmony, life, like the current of a river moving, or the wind that blows, not static, not rote, not set in stone, but alive together. This world is not this way. It's all in an accumulation of knowledge and how one uses it. Somehow, we rarely live out of out true self. BUT, we will know it's lack, though we can't describe it and though we may never divulge it to anyone. There is a desperate incompleteness that haunts us and it is a drive that confounds us.

We feel like we're coming to a cliff or in a river, and hear the waterfalls thundering just up ahead, and we are always warding off dread. If feels inevitable. Yet, it is Your Kindness that leads to revelation unto repentance, and the force of seeing that causes us to acknowledge a misery, an emptiness, which bring us to You. You are SO dreadfully missed, so desperately hungered for, yet, unbeknownst. Oh God, open blind hearts, until they are blissfully freed in the truth of Your love and BEING, with them.

Emmanuel, God with US.

We need to know, we weren't created to be alone..."

Okay, well that is that for today. I am grateful, for the many pens, pieces of paper, "journals" in varying shape and size, from spiral notebooks, to leather bound tomes:) Life pouring out, in breath, in energy, in movement and in ink:) and heard, seen, treasured, listened to, by God, Who is with us, with me. Yipee!

First Responder?

Well, just checked my junk email, and I found the first responder to our ad to rent "the middle of nowhere", which, isn't actually how I advertised it, just in case anyone might wonder:)

I wrote the phone number down, while my stomach did some simple tumbling gymnastics, and got it all tidily recorded. They are "very interested" in seeing it, as soon as possible. Gulp. Maybe, I'll luck out, and it's spam. Sometimes, you don't know how you feel, what you think, what is in your heart, until a little pressure is applied.

I should be thanking God, that someone is interested. I know I'll get there, eventually. I'm always walking in conversion. Conversion, from one point of thought, to another. Today, would not be a good day for me to show the house. Not just because it's slightly untidy, actually, I'm uncluttering in my kitchen, and it's midway through. A little more than "slightly" untidy:)

Maybe I should let them come up today, when it's pretty darn stormy and the roads are icy.

If they are the one's for my place, none of that will matter, because they'll see what I can't really hide. If they can't see that, this place is NOT for them.

So Father, give me courage to make that response, to be kind, and to let go of this place, but never do anything but squeeze Your hand tighter. If I trip, and I might, thanks ahead of time for picking me up, letting me cry and soak Your shoulder. You are my Refuge, and You are WAY more beautiful than this little farm. NOTHING compares to You. You are so amazing, what is not to love about You. Give me a vision for the next place, the next adventure and a heart that is full of Your courage, mine's already gone. I can't possibly exhaust Yours.

Oh my friends, pray for me, help me, as I enter a new chapter. Thanks for reading these words, as they tumble out in real time. It will be well, and it is.

Christmas Prayer

A satisfied heart,
Fully engaged in living,
Like an eagle gathers the wind,
And swims through it,
Like a fish flies through water,
A heart moving limbs,
Through a life,
Like a mountain well climbed,

Unrehearsed,
unpretentious,
unafraid,
unhindered,
unbound,
unfettered,
understood.

AND................. Thankful!

Middle of nowhere, for rent?

I spent some hours, today and yesterday, mostly yesterday, trying to get my home listed on craigslist, but it will not post, in spite of help. It is a mystery to me. Maybe they thought I was lying, because it looks, just too good to be true.

Right this moment, I'm typing on my laptop, as it sits on my kitchen table. I'm looking out multiple windows, in almost gale force winds, rain lashing about, and I'm enjoying the calm, quiet, shelter. I am surrounded on two sides by houseplants and summer flower pots, that refuse to stop blooming:)

I would rather advertise for a person, to come and enjoy this place, even more than I have. So, just for the fun of it, I'm going to write an ad here. A hypothetical one, from my tiny farm, to cyberspace.

"I'm looking for a companion, to occupy my quiet spaces. Preferably a family, with children and pets, who will make some noise out here for me to listen to. I'm a good sized home, really old, but I don't show it. I have gleaming hardwood floors, but don't run too fast, you might slip and get a terrible black eye, like my present companion did. I was glad when they removed that landline. Why would she run to the phone like that? You must not expect everything to be perfect about me. I need some paint on my porch, and on my deck. I love my new red roof, it was a sacrifice of love giving me that. I have a new boiler, that burns oil, and heats with baseboard hot water. I think I'm realllllyyy cozy myself. I have a big kitchen, but I need a couple of new appliances, (as least my present companion thinks so, since she broke one burner on the cooktop, I don't mind though, I love her)

I have four small bedrooms, and very short steps up to the second story where they all are. Walk carefully and hold the hand rail. There are beautiful views from every single window. There are so many animals around and I like their company. There are ancient trees, in front and back and in the woods too. On one of them, I sport a really awesome rope swing. I have apples trees, both wild and tame, that would prefer someone with a little more experience than my present companion has. (No offense)

I have given off good, cozy heat from my fireplace, and I am spacious downstairs, with a separate laundry room. I have a secret entrance behind the dryer, for my companions' cat to come and go through. (Just thought someone might especially like this:)

I have a huge front porch. People think I look friendly and that's because I am. Yes, I do have that bit of white picket fence in my yard. Don't hold it against me though, I bet some of my future companions used to have mullets too:)

My driveway is gravel and out toward the gravel road is my large and really cool barn. I feel extra cool about it because Wolf Out the Window used to practice in me. They really rock by the way. None of the neighbours minded, because there are none close enough to hear a loud rock band!

As you go up the driveway more, just past the house, up the hill a bit, is the sweetest artist cottage you ever did see. (Just sharing a secret, this is the best hook in my "fishing for a new companion" tackle box) When my present companion first went in there, she burst out crying for joy, that's when I knew she would be mine:) It is large, bright, with a woodstove that really pumps out the heat. I think my heart is more in here than I can communicate. My present companion would like a bathroom in there, and so would I.

You can walk all over me, all 42 acres of me. There are places to play, jump on trampoline, and 30 acres of me, you can plow and plant. They are used to that. I have a big, sweet, spring fed pond, with tons of fish and a dock. I have been greatly enjoyed by everyone who's ever jumped into me. The oftener, the better I say. I am absolutely perfect in summer, not yucky like some ponds that I won't mention.

You have to like fresh air, lots of flowers, lots! You have to like living pretty far from a grocery store and make my kitchen the best restaurant around, or you'll get frustrated. You must like BBQ's and outdoor fireplaces and picnics, just because. It would be helpful if you liked mountain biking, because it is my well kept secret. If you need to heal, from your season of life, if you need rest and respite, I am perfect for that if I do say so myself. Angels like me, and God made me for someone, who needs Him.

My companion right now, doesn't want to leave me, she's downright protective of me. She even prays for me, she loves me and she knows God gave me to her for a season. I like that about her."

Okay, that's the note, just as my farm dictated it. Love to all:)