Soul Sister Time

                You have a choice.  You can be miserable, upset and full of angst or you can free yourself from the anxiety that is abundant in this world.  If that is true, then why are so many of us miserable, upset and full of angst?                 You would think we would do anything to stop the misery.  Yet we often remain trapped in a cycle of upset for years that turns into decades.  The same reason that the world has so many miserable traps is the same reason we do not have to remain in our pits.  Volition, free will, is the reason we get trapped by misery or become set free.                 The Garden of Gethsemane preaches this lesson most profoundly.  Jesus used His human will to escape His misery even though it meant submitting to the cross.  Being asked to take on the sins of the entire world was as miserable a circumstance as anyone has ever faced.  Most of us have a limit to the evil in the world that we have to go through; but not Jesus.  Personally, I will accept

              I distinctly remember sending this quote by Julian of Norwich to a recently widowed friend of mine over ten years ago.  You will not be overcome. God did not say you will not be troubled, You will not be belaboured, You will not be disquieted; But God said, You will not be overcome. The quote in one of my devotional books for July 23, which marks the day I became a widow myself is by the same author.  “ One day God spoke to me and I heard these words, “you won’t be overcome.”  God wants us to pay attention to His words.  God wants us to be strong in our certainty in Him, always, both in good times and in bad.  The Lord loves us, and God so enjoys our company.  God loves being with us and wants us to love Him and enjoy being with Him and trust Him completely, and all will be well .”  As I write this six years since his death I can attest to the reality that all will be well.  God chose to bless me with a second marriage to a wonderful man who holds my hand thr

              When most people think of the sins of Sodom, they remember the story about the men of Sodom wanting to rape Lot’s guests, who were actually angels.  It’s an unthinkable tale about distasteful actions by the town’s people and even Lot himself, who offered to send his virgin daughter to appease the out-of-control mob.  It’s an X-rated story you don’t expect to find in Genesis 19, the middle of the first book of the Bible.  Lot could not protect his guests, and ironically they were sent to protect him and anyone in his family who would listen to him.  This story is so famous it is known by even those who never read the Bible because the name of the town Sodom is associated with a form of homosexual rape.               Ezekiel seems to indicate that there is much more that we must learn from the sins of Sodom.  These other sins are extremely convicting.  According to Ezekiel 16:49-50 the sins were not limited to sexual sins,-although the rape and sexual perversion are no

              Someone asked me if I was speaking for Jesus after I shared a post on Facebook.  My answer was: “No, I am only sharing a story that I find relevant to the discussion at hand.”  In reality, I suppose that I do speak for Jesus in my words, actions and Facebook posts.  The story I shared was factual and relevant to the issue of the day.  I do not apologize for anything I said in response to the person who seemed to be questioning me because the story was from a certain news outlet (not sure if it was my character, my intellect, my bias).  In sharing the story, I was not validating every story that outlet has ever published nor would I ever deny the bias of the news outlet.  Honestly, I did not give a lot of thought to where the story originated just that it was a factor that would help bring light to the discussion.  I have long recognized the bias in news reporting.  I have a practice of balancing the sources from which I get news so that I can better discern the truth