The Chronicles of Melinda

So in another effort to test Job God allows Satan to afflict Job with sores from head to foot.  And Job sits silent in his misery.  Three of his friends find out Job is having a hard time and they all get together and go to sit with him also in silence. 

There’s a bit of friendship-ism to remember.  Do you know who your true friends are?  Do you know who would come to you in your worst time and still support you?  You know - there are friends you have that you know will be there ANYTIME you need them….good or bad.  There are the fairweather friends who are only there when things are hunky dory in your life,  but when you truly need them they are nowhere to be found.   And then of course there are friends who only seem to come when there is a crisis.  Is that so they can say they were there for you when you needed them most or just so they can know what’s going on?  I don’t know, but  I feel pretty blessed to know who my true friends are.  I know who I can call when things are good or bad.  I know who I can call when I need a listener without a sharp tongue.  I know who I can call when I need someone to encourage me.  

People are often misled that I have A LOT of friends.  One of my very best friends filled out one of those silly little on-line surveys about me and one of the questions was “what was your first impression of me”.  Well she said her first impression upon meeting me was that I have a lot of friends.  But that’s really not true and she says she knows that now, too.  I know of and am acquainted with a lot of people.  I consider myself somewhat of a social butterfly and the “never meets a stranger” type.   I love people, meeting all kinds of people and getting to know people.  I guess that stems from years of military dependent upbringing.  I had no choice but to make new friends every so many years when we moved.

But in reality - I may know or be acquainted with a lot of people, but my circle of intimate friends is pretty tight  (Even smaller than my Alltel Circle!)  I think I’ve blogged about this before - - - but Job and his situation sure did bring it back up.  Here’s a man who had, seemingly everything.  Then he lost everything and even worse became a freak of nature.  But he still had three faithful friends who came when they heard he was in trouble to be with him and offer comfort. 

When they found him they found him sitting in silence….and they sat with him in silence for 7 days and nights until he was ready to talk.  I have friends who will do that.  In fact I can remember quite vividly one friend who dropped everything and came to me on a day I was in emotional turmoil and rode horses and spent an entire day with me in almost the same utter silence Job’s friends sat with him in.  Sometimes….that’s all we need.  We just need to know someone is there with us and for us…but we don’t really need them to say anything while we are wrapping our brain around something.

More on the Job story later.  But sit and think about that for awhile.  Find out who your friends are!

Flexeril today only made me want to sleep all day.  It hurts to get up and it hurts to twist.  Hatin’ the idea that I may have SERIOUSLY hurt something when I went to get out of hte car this morning and the pain renderred me motionless for about 30 seconds.   If you apply any pressure…it hurts.  Could even have torn something.  This is not good!

Guess I will give this a couple of days and potentially go get it checked out if I don’t feel any improvement. 

On another note…how was your Memorial Day weekend?  How much MD food did you manage to pack down?  It was a beautiful day to be outside.  So I hope you were~

Ever see the Butterfly Effect?  This guy figures out he can jump himself into the past and every time he goes and changes something - it screws everything up.

Well in Genesis (I finsihed it this morning) Jacob’s sons try to change something.  Joseph has a dream of everyone bowing down to Him and he tells his brothers about it.  They are already pretty miffed that Joseph is his father’s favorite anyway, so when he tells them about his dream they start plotting to kill him so they don’t have to bow down to him.  They put him down in a bit and they were going to kill him, but one brother swayed them against that.  So they end up selling him off as a slave.

Know what happens?  Through all of the mistrials that he is plagued with  - being sold by his brothers, being accused by his master’s wife of trying to take advantage of her (when she was just mad cuz he wouldn’t sleep with her) and ending up in jail, he has God on his side.  This works in his favor (cuz having God on your side always works in your faovor y’know) and he’s always successufil despite the situations he’s in..  So in the long run he eventually winds up being pretty much right hand man to the Pharoah himself.  And so he becomes a great ruler of Egypt.  So everyone bows down to him after all.  Even his brothers who put him down in that pit! 

He played them good before revealing himself to his brothers.  But the point is…his brother’s tried to change the outcome of something and in the long run…God took care of Joseph and he STILL became what he was destined to be.

So my friends…don’t try to change things because you don’t like how you think the outcome will be.  Whatever God means to happen in your life is going to happen regardless.  So trust in Him and roll with what ya got.  Sometimes God puts things on the downside for awhile…but he will eventually lift you up and it will glorify Him regardless.

Ya had daughters getting their dad drunk so they could sleep with him and have children before he died to preserve their family lines (Lot’s two daughters Genesis 19). 

You had brothers deceiving their dying fathers to inherit blessings meant for other siblings (Jacob and Essau Genesis 27).

You had women getting pregnant thinking this would make their husband love them more (Leah - one of Jacob’s TWO official wives).  See Jacob loved Rachel (the other wife) more than Leah, (but it didn’t stop him from jumping in between the sheets with Leah regularly).  So Leah kept having more and more kids trying to make Jacob love her!  Didn’t change things, really.

Then  it just became overall competition as to how many kids they could have for their husband (same story).   Rachel couldn’t get pregnant…so she gave her husband one of her maidservants to get pregnant cuz Leah was having kids..  Then  Leah stopped baring children - so she gave Jacob one of HER maidservants to sleep with and get pregnant cuz Rachel’s maidservant was having kids.   Eventually both Leah and Rachel were blessed enough to be able to get pregnant (Rachel became fertile….Leah became fertile again after a dry spell) cuz God was lookin’ out for them.  But I mean - - - check it out.  Jacob really made out here.  He started with two wives and ended up with what?  FOUR! That’s straight up illegal this day and age!

Apparently how many descendants one had was THAT important back then.  If women couldn’t conceive they were quick to find someone else to have children for them from their husbands (kind of like…surrogate moms with the bonus of actually doing the deed and not having medical implantations).  It really was kind of crazy, don’t you think?

Come on ladies - how many of us would be like “Well - - - I can’t have kids with you so here…sleep with my friend and get her pregnant!”  No way sisters!  It’s a trip to the clinic  these days- no hanky panky involved.

Now if you don’t believe me that this stuff is in the Bible you go read these stories for yourself!  At times you will hear that familiar chant in your head “JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!” if you think about that kind of stuff happening THESE days.  But it was completely legitiamate back then.  Grab some bon-bons and your Bible.   I gave you the chapters - so YOU read the stories for yourself. 

But on another obedience note in my reading today - God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and Abraham didn’t hesitate to obey, not knowing God was testing him.  (Genesis 22)  But God stopped him RIGHT before he was about to sacrifice his son because Abraham had demonstrated the fear of God willing to kill his own son because God told him, to!  So God stopped him and provided a ram as the sacrifice instead.  (Apparently back in that day - - - nobody arrested you and institutionlized you if you killed your child and said God told you to do it.  Don’t try this at home in this day and age guys!) 

Anyway- hope I peaked your interest enough to give you some down and dirty to read in the Bible.  Even better- sounds like fiction - but these are TRUE stories!  Have a great weekend.

I stopped to reflect on submitting for a minute in Genesis 16.  Abram’s  (soon to be Abraham)wife Sarai (Sarah) had failed to bear children.  So she offered to her husband her maidservant Hagar to bear him children.  Once Hagar became pregnant she started to “despise” Sarah so Sarah complained to Abram.  Abram told herto do whatever she thought was best with Hagar so of course….Sarah treats the servant like crap.  So Hagar says “I’m outta here” and she flees.

An angel of God finds Hagar out in the desert by a spring.  (She musta been thirsty).  And the angel asks her where she came from and where she was going.  Hagar tells the angel she ran away and the angel tells her to go back and submit to her mistress with a promise to give her too many descendants to count. So….Hagar is obedient and she goes back where she knows she’ll be treated like crap.  Of course…the promise would be kept because in the long run, Hagars son, Ishmael, would be born.  After a jealous Sarah (who finally has a son of her own and wants to make sure that Hagar’s son doesn’t get any of the inheritance) orders Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael out in the desert.  Abraham didn’t want to…but then God promised him he would take care of him (Ishmael) and ”make him a great nation” (pretty much what the angel told Hagar when she ran away from Sarah) so Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael out to the desert.  Well in the long run Ishmael marries an egyption woman and has 12 sons and they became tribal rulers.  So seems God was pretty tight on keeping his word!

Then there is Sodom and Gomorrah!  When the angels took Lot and his wife and daughters to be spared from God’s destruction of the sinful cities (as I will call them because they were so overridden with sin ) they were told NOT to look back on the destruction.  Well…Lot’s wife stops and looks and she’s turned to a pile of salt.

So whether or not it’s God or angels of God (who act/speak on God’s behalf)….I think it’s safe to say that you should obey!

If you obey God…even when it may mean there’s a little bit of unpleasantness involved…you may be fruitful if you obey …or you just might end up a pile of salt if you do something he tells you NOT to do!

I have read Genesis before.  Genesis was an eye opener for me…and I remember that as I read it and see scriptures that I underlined the first time I really cracked it open.  Some “every day” kinds of questions are answerred right there in Genesis. 

Do you know the first 9 Chapters of Genesis sheds light on lots of things that you can use to witness GOD to your unchurched friends.  

In the book of Genesis you can find out:

Why we wear clothing to cover ourselves up when at first Adam and Eve felt no shame being naked!

Why women have labor pains associated with child birth. (Stop blaming your husband for it in the birthing room ladies…one of our own is to blame)

Why producing food is so laborous for man (meaning…why we have to work our food from the land to feed mankind).

Why God put a 120 year cap on the life of men when before…man lived to be HUNDREDS of years old (like Noah who was 950 years old when he died!!!)

Why we won’t ever have to worry about God flooding the earth again to destroy all life.  (Sure….we have localized floods.  But the whole earth will never be flooded to destroy all life on it).

What a rainbow REALLY means (and what that has to do with the whole earth not being flooded).

Check it out for yourself if you haven’t already.  Yeah - that’s right…God left the answers in that text message Dave’s been telling you about…The BIBLE!

I missed my morning Bible plan this morning, but already had a plan B so it’s all good.  I have not already fallen off the wagon two days in.  I had to get to work a little early (so didn’t have that 30 minutes) before my dentist appointment at 9:00AM so after taking care of a few important matters off I went.

Well…it didn’t take the x-ray for the dentist to say “This tooth needs to come out!”  Then she commended my super-spidy-immune system noting that most people that come in at the point I was at (a mild toothache that was coming and going) had a swollen face.  No swelling here - I just knew something was going on because I had this mild toothache and I could feel my top right wisdom tooth was either cavitied - or broken so I suspeced that as the culprit. (Turned out to be a little of both - broken with a cavity).

She gave me the option to have it pulled right then and there…so why wait?  I said go ahead and gave my boss a ring that I was going to have a tooth pulled and would be in later.  HER response was “You’re coming in?  Have you ever had a wisdom tooth pulled? Well….okay?….I will see you in a little while then?” (all questioning and doubtful sounding). 

Well I have never had a tooth pulled.  I imagined a nightmare of an event….but it really wasn’t so bad.

My gum was nummed with some gel on a q-tip for a few minutes.   Then came the needles….and I didn’t feel a thing.  Even the one in the roof of my mouth where it was supposed to “pinch real hard” was nearly painless.  Isn’t that the hard part?  The needles?  I’ve always been pretty good with needles though.

Got all nice and numb…and started feeling a little funny.  Tingly in my arms and chest then my heart rate elevated.  Made me nervous - cuz I got that unknown food allergy that makes my heart race.  But doc assured me that was normal.  Then she gave me the oxygen…and a little nitrous.   Soon enough I felt like I was floating. 

Well it didn’t take long at all.  Once she got into my mouth I just closed my eyes (cuz I’m already REALLY tired) and before I knew it she had stuffed in some gauze, showed me my three rooted tooth, gave me some ibuprofen and sent me on my way.  Guess I thought it was supposed to take a lot longer than it did.

So now I’m sitting here at work trying to figure out why all my employees always take a whole day off when they have a morning dentist appointment to have a tooth pulled.  I was done with the entire process from walking in the door to the x-ray to the extraction in a little more than an hour.  I was back to work within 2 hours of leaving to GO to the dentist.  So why the whole day off?  Must look into this!  WHIMPS!   Okay - so they took out a wisdom tooth.  But I don’t feel any dumber so they don’t need to play me like I am.  HA HA!

 Anyway…I have a meeting this afternoon so I am going to make up my Bible time in my office for lunch. 

Tonight - it’s off to my last Wednesday night small group gathering before summer break!  Kinda sad.  Sniff sniff.  But I know we’ll have some fun over summer break so life is good!

Just came back at 5:00PM to add…I am still in NO pain long after the numbness has worn off.  So I’m off to group pain free!

My TIME is in the morning.  I started it this week.  Taira is on the bus bright and early at 6:45AM…then I feed the critters.  I normally go be lazy for a half hour and watch the news before getting showerred and dressed to hit the road.  But now - I will feed up and hit the Bible for that half hour time. (The news is full of bad stuff anyway.  I would rather hear what God has to say!)

My PLACE is my front porch.  Gotta love a front porch swing.  This allows me to take in the peacefulness of birds chirping, the occassional car going by, my dogs playing, horses munching….yup - God’s creation.  This morning it was raining…but still a wonderful reflection of God’s creation and my porch is coverred so I stayed dry.  Unless there’s a hurricane…I can still read on the porch so it’s a pretty cool place.

My PLAN  - well I’m going to follow this plan to read my Bible in a year.  I’ve read many of the books of the Bible…but it’s time to get down and dirty so this is my plan!  Stick with me - I am sure I’ll be blogging about my Bible-isms.  I’m also glad to finally have found the use for my Bible handbook to prepare me for each reading.

But….I kicked this off the past couple of days in the book of Romans.  Romans was written by the Apostle Paul - one of THE most influential christians in my book.  The man who started as a christian killer until God layeth the smacketh down and reformed him and made him a Christ solider!

Some Roman’s scriptures have been sticking out to me or been brought to my attention through some form or another…so I chose to start with Romans for that reason.  Tomorrow I’ll get in tune with the plan above starting with Genesis….where it all started!!! 

Romans talks pretty much about God’s power to save and righteousness through faith, being deliverred from sin and lsome key points on how to live a good christian life through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Here’s a few Roman’s verses I love:

1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes

Let me ask you this - - - are YOU ashamed of the gospel?  When is the last time you testified and witnessed???  Hmmm!

5:3-5: Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

That’s right.  We tend to ask WHY when times get hard God is putting us through the ringer.  But praise God even through your time of suffering (Listen to Praise You in this Storm - Casting Crowns and Jesus Bring the Rain…Mercy Me)! When it’s all said and done we are strengthened in hope and faith.  And through us and to Him there will be glory!
And we all know this one:

15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
ACCEPTANCE!   Who are we to fail to accept someone when we have been accepted and forgiven by the one who matters most of all!

8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

8:31… If God is for us, who can be against us?
 Nuff said!  WHO GOT YOUR BACK?  GOD DOES!

There are a LOT of great verses in Romans.  Go read it for yourself.  You’ll get some insight on the sin, avoiding the sin and deliverance from sin.

I haven’t started journaling  (but then my blog will make a far better journal and I can get my thoughts out a LOT faster than writing! at 80wpm).  But this morning I did text a friend of mine the scripture that stuck out to me.  So I guess I really forwarded a text straight from God this morning to someone I thought of as soon as I read it.

So - here ya go my friends.  If I can do it - - - YOU can do it!  So jump on it.  Pick your time and your place…make a plan and stick to it!  If you need me to…I’ll send you a text reminder from my new phone!

So I now have the L.G. Scoop and it’s super cool with a slide out keyboard.  I’m back to instant messaging right from my cell phone.  I went with the pretty turquoise one instead of the retro citrus one I thought i would go with.  Yesterday was THE day I became eligible for the phone upgrade.  So after a not TOO terrible (but long enough) wait in Alltel I walked out with a new phone.  I had to manually put in all 168 of my contacts (because of the piece broke off in the Strobe they couldn’t do the transfer…and I wouldn’t have paid the extra for it anyway).  But it’s done.  Complete with the download of a few ringtones.  (Best Friend by Brandy for my BFF’s….The Altar and the Door for my Christian friends of NHC…and a special one for my Wednesday group leader that I can’t WAIT for her to hear tomorrow night).  But all in all - this phone and it’s features (including an MP3 player) is pretty darned cool.

Ah the simple things that make me happy.

On a down note - where the crap is my tax stimulus check?  It must be coming in the mail cuz it did not direct deposit.  Sigh.  

I have a lot I want to get done tomorrow so I might as well rest up this evening and take a break.   Tomorrow I will be full throttle again I’m sure.  And I want to get an early afternoon viewing of Prince Caspian tomorrow with Taira so that means - up and at ‘em early if that’s going to happen.

I was telling one of my bestest friends how I haven’t been too much for large crowd socializing lately and have been more content in more personal or private settings.  She told me that I needed time for me.  She was right.  She pointed out that I always used to be running here or there, at this party, at that trail ride, at that horse show.  And looking back on what I was doing this time last year…yup she’s right.  (Maybe she was quick to notice and point it out because…I didn’t have time for her when all that was going on!)  I was always off busy going somewhere or doing something and usually surrounded by lots of people or activity and not too committed in my personal one on one relationships because I was entertaining too many.  My heart hasn’t been into that so much.  God is telling me to “be quiet” in the activity sense.  I’m content in the things that I do at the church and the relationships I’m maintaining right now.  I have finally discoverred that I don’t need to be surrounded by people ALL the time.  That a few key relationships will provide me the “social” time I need while I deal with what God is laying on me.

And come to think of it…in a little over a month I’ll be “celebrating” my one year anniversary of going to NHC for the first time ever.  So maybe God is preparing me for that milestone…it’s a pretty big milestone.  It was kind of like…the beginning of the making of the new improved me.  It wasn’t too long after that that he started quietting me down, so to speak. 

You know…He’s renderred me a little vulnerable these days.  Is it possible to be vulnerable and invincible all at the same time?  Because I feel like he’s ripped open this old wound and left me feeling a little exposed, but at the same time He’s telling me He will be right there with me the whole time so just “roll with it”.  And yet…He’s still enabled me to encourage others around me.  I’m sure it all means something and it will all tie together when all is said and done.

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