Some A**hole

These are the words a friend of mine spoke that had us cracking up with laughter:

Some a**hole came along and f%cked up my life...

Our subject matter was not in the least bit entertaining or funny, in fact, my friend is suffering extreme bouts of grief, with tidal waves of sorrow that threaten to drown her. Both her parents died within one year, and I believe it was a mere six months between deaths. In one fell swoop (six months is such a short span of time), she was orphaned. 

Who to blame, who to blame? Some a**hole, I suppose...

● Grief is a hideous middle of the night monstrosity 

● Grief is an early morning sneaky thief that shrieks, Wake-up, I want to remind you of something

● Grief is a daily intruder that overstays visitation rights. There is no way to extricate it, and tell it to, Get the hell out of here! Go back to where I can't see you or feel you, or hear from you ever again

● Grief is cruel and unrelenting

● Grief has private club members, that join without invitation, and definitely without a sense of prestige or privilege

● Grief changes everything, and who a person was is no more, the bloom of hope aged and darkened quickly, replaced by a sobriety that is not easily shaken, nor should it be

● Grief is recalling without the pleasure of reliving, in the flesh, with a person that was loved, admired, cherished, revered, appreciated

Irreplaceable. 

Have you considered this, dear reader, how some people that have taken up residence in your life are one-of-a-kind, and if they were to depart through death, or misfortune, you could never have them back again? That is the never again feeling that my friend is coming to terms with. Her mom has been dead, and I say dead dear reader, in a heavy handed way, because to call it anything else is to deny the gravity of the situation, for six months now. When a person dies, despite seeing the motionless, breathless body, there are the memory clips of them that play in the mind, tricking us into believing they are still alive, and that we will see them again soon. That is the cruelty of death... the having to reconcile what is, with what used to be. 

And so my friend made a joke, about some a**hole f%cking up her life, because that is how she is feeling. She can't point a finger at anyone and say, It was YOU, YOU did this... or It was THEM, THAT group over there, they are responsible for how messy my life, my feelings, my thoughts are. They are the reason I have trouble focusing, getting things done, and how I don't recognize myself anymore... 

Wanting to blame and not being able to is a tough thing for a human: we really do want to make sense of what is to the soul, incomprehensibly nonsensical. Logic is marvellous, but death is so strange an animal, that no matter how pragmatically we broach the subject and try to understand it, comprehension remains enigmatically elusive. 

I stated in a recent piece of writing that 2024 will be the year of death. The grief, the wailing, it will be heard far and wide. God will bring us to our knees pleading for relief, and that, dear reader, is the only place we will feel any comfort at all. He won't take the pain away, he will be with us as we suffer. He will scape us up off the floor, spatula like, brush us off, and have us face another day, with his strength. Some days with weakened extremities, we will not be able to carry on, and he will be there then too, this time brushing our hair back from our feverish brows, bidding us to sip from his Holy Spirit, to quench the fiery darts shot at us from the enemy of our souls... 

The devil does not want us to think past our now, he wants us to despair eternally, and to live the fate he will forever have to endure. That would be grief unbearable, would it not, dear one?

My friend swore today, and we both laughed at the absurdity of the situation, of a crime being committed against her soul, with no one to pin the charges on.

She was right: someone rather invisible, whom hence forth we shall call death, came along and stole two precious people from her life. She is reeling most days, from the reality she faces of not seeing them, hearing their voices, sharing a meal, a story, a hug, laughter, intimate conversation... She misses them, and they aren't coming back.

Perhaps you can relate, or will one day in the near future. I hope not, but then again, into every life a little rain must fall.

I cannot imagine facing the terrors of grief without God, dear one. I cannot fathom facing the hopelessness of a life lived and lost, without faith. I cannot, and I am grateful, I do not live this way. My friend, she knows her Creator, she knows the Great Comforter, and it is to him she turns when her heart aches and she longs to see her parents again. 

She doesn't feel like herself currently, with the grief taking up lots of space in her being, but she still has a snappy sense of humour, and a resiliency that is admirable given the circumstances. 

What about you? Have you joined the Grief Club? How are you fairing? Where do you get your comfort? Do you turn to the One that can soothe you when no one else can? Are you gazing into eternity and anticipating being in the Presence of God... death is eminent, and must be considered as a reality.

What do you believe, and whatever will you do, when death comes, to your door? 

Revelation 21:4

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Tearing Down Idols

And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the name of them out of that place (Deuteronomy 12:3)

What is the difference, dear reader, between admiration, adoration, and idolization? How do we know when someone has moved from healthy appreciation for another, to something somewhat sinister and unbecoming to their being: an unhealthy attachment?

Have you ever been obsessed with something or someone? When did you recognize you were over the edge? What did you have to do to stop the thoughts, or the activities that were taking over your mind, your hands, your heart? 

Addiction is a word used to describe what is perceived as uncontrollable detrimental behaviours. I am inclined to call controllable behaviours that people persist in purposefully, as obsession, rather than addiction. We all do what we do to claim a prize, an outcome we desire. For example: an alcoholic, a person purportedly addicted to the consumption of alcohol, has to source out the stuff to water their pretend problem. They will need money, a means of transport, a person to deliver the product if they can't go solo to get it themselves, and a store from which to purchase their mind and body altering elixir of choice. It isn't some magical formula: being an "addict" is a pragmatic step by step event, repeated over and over again until the person is pickled, and any semblance of their former self fades away into someone else's memory of them. The drinker forgets him or herself, forgets the people they have been given to relate to, and gives themselves over to what they demand they deserve, again, to their detriment. 

We could play out this scenario for many wanton and repetitive behaviours, and that is the crux of the matter. People erect idols, icons, and altars, worshipping them ~ and at them in the case of altars ~ with single minded focus. 

Shall I list the who's and what's that have been bowed down to, or do you have a list started in you head already? Let me off the top of my head, list a few people that have been considered icons because of the fame, and hero worshippers they amassed:

Elvis, Gandhi, Hitler, Freud, Trump, Buffet, Justin Bieber, Tony Robbins, Oprah, pope, Billy Graham: these are just a few names of humans that have made it to the top of the hit charts. They are heralded as successes in their given career or calling fields. Love them or hate them, they have influenced society and left a mark. Each one has been labelled some kind of hero, even Hitler, who still, to this day, has many a die hard devotee. 

We humans are a needy bunch. We need to be taught, we need to be lead, we need to have life skills modelled for us in order to become capable service minded citizens. We don't always have the best examples set before us, and searching for a person that seems to be the cats meow, that we can spend our affections on, that we wish we were like, is often the beginning of obsession. Humans worshipping other humans is a dangerous endeavour. Humans paying homage at the feet of another, mere human, is demeaning for the one, and hyper elevating for the other. Idols get knocked off perches, and when they do, they fall headlong onto their fans and followers: there is always co-lateral damage in this scenario. 

At the top of this page there is Scripture, starting with a command, And ye shall overthrow... The command is God's mandate, and I take it very seriously. The orders are to overthrow, break, burn, hew; destroy altars, pillars, groves and graven images. Dear reader, this is a full-time job! Open your eyes just a sliver and give your environment a critical assessment: What do you see? Christian, I ask again, What do you see everywhere, if not icons and idols, altars and images? Satan worship is all about us: formerly it took on subtle secretive forms, now we see grotesque displays, with siren calls to those that are drawn to demonic forces and activities. People are unabashed in their evident worship, obsessed with their god, not recognizing they are enslaved.

It is the enslavement that I find most disturbing. The invisible chains that are now more obvious than ever before, need breaking. The only way for an indentured servant ~ this is what a Satan worshipper is, since they labour for his destructive cause ~ to be set free, is to hear and receive the Truth. Prayer and professing are our weapons of war, dear one, as we go into warrior mode for souls. 

I confess here that I have an obsession too. I have called myself a one trick pony many a time. Try to turn me around, and I will spin back to the exact same spot you found me in. I love Jesus and The Bible with every ounce of my being and I could say I cannot help myself, that I am an addict out of control, but that would be an utter lie of the first degree. I choose daily to worship at the altar of my Lord, my God, my Saviour. I have Bibles on all three levels of my home, and Scripture on my walls, reminding me to whom I belong. There are crosses and book marks, and some might call them tokens, little images, but they are not graven... I look at them and they fill my heart with hope in Christ, and drive me to speak of him and write about him, and long for him to be the God that people turn to for the salvation of their souls. 

We choose our thoughts, and how to coral them.

We choose our reading material, and how it moves us.

We choose our friends, and how they influence us.

We choose who and what we worship, and how it impacts our spirit.

We choose, and to say otherwise takes away responsibility and accountability, and what is a human reduced to, without choice? I wasn't born a Christian, I was born with the potential to become one. I recall that moment in time when the dark shroud of pessimism was lifted from my mind and the Light entered in. I heard, and then I saw, and I have never looked back wanting to undo what God did for me that day. 

If you are choosing destructive ways that are detrimental to your well-being and are co-laterally injuring others, you can choose differently today, with the strength of God as your backbone and muscle. Straighten up, fly right. Leave behind worldly attachments and cling to the One that sets souls free. Go to God, go to the Bible, go to professing Christians that will NOT deviant from Truth, and hear and see what it feels like to have the chains drop from your mind, your hands, your heart. 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19)

This, dear reader, as is every other, the year of the Lord.

Reformation or Revival

We are under God's judgment, dear reader. What was is no more, as far as the eye can see and the soul can discern. Studying the Bible affords us great insights into the minds and hearts of our human forerunners, and all the things they were inclined toward, we are too, namely: 

1 rejecting the living God in favour of self-indulgent disobedience; or

2 turning to him as King of our lives, and living according to his will; and

3 the murky in between: we have all visited there for a time, and perhaps a time and a half too? The Bible calls this being lukewarm...

The above brings us soundly to my topic, of reformation or revival? 

Reformation is a reforming of our minds in accordance with the Word of God and his Holy Spirit through Christ our Lord. A person can believe in God, show signs of faith, but lack that certain something that demonstrates complete commitment to the cause of Christianity. There is a semblance without substance. Perhaps this is you, or someone you know? The idea of Jesus is appealing, but really getting to know him requires Biblical study, applying what you learn, and living a life beyond reproach, RE FORMED in HIS image! Are you willing to do this, dear reader?

Revival is something many a Christian hopes and prays for. Those that belong to the Saviour have the same desires, they want none to be lost. Revival is still preached, but for me, the concept has a staleness, like old moldy bread, that harkens to the glory days before 2020... before nearly the whole world turned their backs on God's Providence and provision, in favour of taking into their own hands, their health, wealth, and spiritual well-being. As I pointed out above, there is 1 self-indulgent disobedience, 2 the turning to God as our king and living according to his will, and 3 the murky in between.

The point I am desirous of making, is that if you have an inclination toward loving Jesus, and perhaps you regret not knowing him better, before the world tilted sideways in 2020, dropping many a human to their eternal demise, then maybe you are ready to be reformed. Maybe, just maybe, you trusted yourself and your own strength to muscle through the last couple of years, and you have become weakened as a result... maybe you need to reconcile yourself NOW, to God and his will for you.

Since a good friend of mine and I see revival differently, I thought I would look up what the Bible has to say on the matter, and whether or not revival or even reformation were words used in the ancient book of wisdom. I landed on a Scripture verse that had me seeing a little more clearly...

Isaiah 57:15

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. 

I love so much about the verse above! 

NOTE: 

● God is the high and lofty One, that inhabits eternity

● His name is Holy

● He dwells in the high and holy place

● With him also that is of contrite and humble spirit (a reference to God's saints)

● To REVIVE the spirit of the humble

● To REVIVE the heart of the contrite ones

God inhabits eternity, is high and lofty, the Only God, is Holy and wants to revive the spirits of the humble and contrite, because dang, dear reader, we have been shocked, stupefied, stunned, and all but silenced into stupor over what we have seen and heard. The faithful remain stedfast no matter the circumstances, but man alive, we sometimes wonder what soul shrinking event will happen next and; can we take much more of the abominations we keep witnessing? 

I am willing to throw away the concepts of reformation and or revival in favour of looking daily to scripture, and discovering there the heart of God for his people. My sweet friend and I, we know to whom we turn when our spirit is troubled: worldly wisdom doesn't hold a candle to The Word of Truth. I have been revived many a time, and I know God wants to revive those that are humble in spirit and contrite of heart... if this is you, go to the One God of the Bible, and learn who he is, and who you can be too.

You can look up scripture solo, dear reader! Start your own study with inquiries that need to be satisfied with answers. I do believe you will travel many a marvellous path on the road to Damascus, and into the Promised Land that is described as our heavenly Canaan. 

I bid you happy reading, and hardy learning. 

1 Thessalonians 2:13 

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

Unconditional Love & Unicorns

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:7-10)

1 Let us love one another

2 God is love

3 Everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God

4 Those that do not love, do not know God

5 God is love

6 God manifested his love toward us

7 He sent his only begotten (bring into existence) Son into the world

8 That we might live through him

9 Herein, is love

10 God loved us, not the other way around

11 He sent his Son to be the propitiation (atonement of Jesus Christ) for our sins

O, the silliness of egotistical, self-absorbed, narrow focused and childish man. God is love, and he proved his love for us by provided atonement through his Son, Jesus Christ, and the cross of calvary. You are a sinner, dear reader, and Someone loved you enough to establish a plan long before you took your first breath, to rescue from your bad self. Your Momma might love you, but God loves you far more, enough to manifest his love in flesh and blood, his Son gracing the world with his Presence in human form over two-thousand years ago. 

NOTE: We are to live through the Son. Everyone that loves is born of God, and they know God. Those that do not love, do not know God. In other words, if you don't know the God of the Bible, and you don't know the Son he sent into the world to save you and I from our sins as a propitiation for them, then you don't know, well, GOD.

I have a tendency to be blunt: this you have more than likely already realized. People often bristle when I suggest that some proclaiming Christians, really aren't Christians at all. Since Christianity is predicated on belief in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, that he came as prophesied, as a babe, born to the virgin Mary, was crucified for the sins of the world, died and was buried, and rose again on third day, after conquering death... (this is the gospel, the Good News), if a professing "Christian" does not believe and speak this whole heartedly, minus ANY and ALL syncretism, they quite simply, are NOT CHRISTIAN. 

Everything, all things, are about Christ, when one belongs solely to him!

Now, you may be wondering why I labelled this writing piece, Unconditional Love & Unicorns. Here is my answer: both are make-believe, human manifestations of ridiculousness. If you need to return to the true meaning of love, look to the top of this article... un is never mentioned in the scripture about love, and in fact, un is an undoing... it is a not, as in love without conditions, is NOT love at all. 

And isn't this convenient, dear reader, for all those that want to undo the love of God, to undermine the message and the messenger, out of a desire to do as they please, with whomever they please, and call it love. Anything goes is the point, and that is precisely what the devil suggests to the unruly and unrighteous. To love without condition is a bizarre bastardization of what the Bible specifically indicates is love. 

Humans have a way of convoluting Godly concepts to accommodate human lusts, and despicable desires. Nothing in the world could be further from Truth, than to suggest that love without wholesome righteousness and clean boundaries, is desirable and healthy. Love, cannot, and never does, lie. God is love.

We now shift to the other foot and glance in the direction of unicorns, those goofy multi-coloured one horn creatures that have horsey appeal and a surreal delightfulness. The Bible mentions unicorns, and when I first saw this, I was mesmerized! Find below my copy and paste:

Job 39:9

Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?

Numbers 23:22

God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Psalms 29:6

He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.

Psalms 92:10

But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

Job 39:10

Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?

Numbers 24:8

God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.

I leave it to you, dear reader, to look up the etymology of the word unicorn, but surely, truly, as you can see in the copied scripture, it does not refer to a prancing pretty pony like, single horned creature of fancy, the current champion of all things homosexual and pedophilic. Unicorn love... is that stuff of nonsense and whimsy that softens: making man effeminate and unbecoming, in other words, NOT MANLY! 

The devil is the great and terrible NOT, the UN doer of all things Godly. He copies and pastes facsimiles while attempting to corrupt the original, making it hideous and repugnant. While he works backstage, he shoves his performing puppets into the limelight, shaming and demeaning, or rather, dehumanizing them. They are replicas that are no longer authenticate able. They no longer resemble the living God, as they take on the attributes of demonic spirits, and rather than love residing within through Christ, they have another spirit manifesting: it is becoming unequivocally (leaving no doubt) evident to all, to whom they belong. 

Obvious

Well now, you have to admit, dear reader, that there is much to point to that has become obvious. 

1 People are sick, and strangely so. What once was uncommon, is now as common as dirt. Turbo cancers in twenty year olds, heart attacks and strokes in adolescents and children; sepsis and extremities turning black; brain tumours; blood clots deluxe. Odd brain fog and headaches, man alive, all the headaches...

2. Deaths, funerals, burials, cremation. I am calling 2024 the year of death. I am not "prophesying" anything, nor am I inclined to believe I have extraordinary, finely tuned abilities that have set me apart from anyone else, enabling me to predict the future. Oh no, not at all. 

What I do have is deductive reasoning working in my favour. You know, the old, cause and effect equation that follows us around and screams, This happened because of that. Now I admit, sometimes missing information can bring us to the door of duped, as in we didn't have all the facts, and based on what we saw before us, we came to the wrong conclusion. That happens, however... I am inclined to be plain here regarding cause and effect:

Ingested, injected, inhaled, absorbed POISON = vomiting, cancer, heart attack, breathing difficulties, convulsions, seizures, stroke, bad circulation, organ failure, tumours, blood clots, brain fog, headaches etc etc.  

I am not a statistician, physician, politician... I am one of many people hearing story after story, and many of them are nightmarish in the ghoulish details, of people having strange illnesses, being "treated" for said "conditions" (please forgive all the air quotes: what is happening is unnatural, and any treatment given to the sick is a desperate attempt to reclaim original design and functioning of the human body, so I approach with scepticism, all things medical that might "fix" what's broken), suffering, and dying anyway. 

Oh, and then there is sadly this: dying suddenly is now trending, a horrifying thing to state and acknowledge as a writer. 

Obvious

What is obvious to me, may not be to you, unless of course you too, had a sense of foreboding, when the power plug was pulled globally, back in 2020? I recall the day, and nothing has been the same since then. As a harbinger, I squawked, squealed, shouted, practically jumped up and down, desperately trying to warn, to persuade, to dissuaded, to stop what apparently, was the inevitable. In a trance, magnetically, the masses were drawn to do what eventually, would be their own undoing. This is the double edged sword of free will. We can choose our own wellness, or our own illness and demise. Ultimately God gives and takes life, but while we have breath, we choose our poison or our medicine (eating from nature and physical activity).   

Dear reader, we are living eventually. Our now is the outcome of the choices millions, perhaps billions made, that did not serve them well, and we are seeing the repercussions, the fallout, the obvious outcomes of: ingested, injected, inhaled, absorbed POISON.

So, dear reader, you may be asking, where does this leave us? Whatever are we to do? As a one trick pony, I only have one suggestion. Go to God. God is Redeemer, Healer, Helper, Wonderful, Counsellor. I am not saying he will cure the body necessarily, although nothing is beyond him and he can undo what we have done, if he so chooses, I am more interested in suggesting that if your soul is sick, he is the balm, the cure, the hand that soothes and makes whole again. 

Death is inevitable and undeniable. You body isn't a forever thing, and will fail you no matter how strong you may feel at the moment. Your spirit though, has the substance, the essence, of eternity, and magnificently moves you in the life you lead. Without your spirit, you would not be animated! Now think of where you would like to spend your future, once the tent you reside in is no more. 

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7)

All belongs to God, dear reader. The shell we are in is his too, but we treat our bodies with such distain, despite them being on loan, as temporary housing for the soul. If you haven't come to the very same conclusion yet, dear one, I pray you do, and soon. A storm is coming, the whirlwind will whip, and the losses will accumulate.

I pray Jesus is your haven and that eventually, heaven will be your home. May God richly bless you. 

Emotional Responsiveness

How emotionally responsive are you, dear reader?

Care to take a quiz?

Are you:

1. High voltage: quick to react, emotionally charged and motivated to respond... one of those escalated types that gets hyped and ramped up easily and quickly, when you feel strongly about a subject or situation

2. Slightly moved: you feel something, but aren't compelled to get up right away and do anything about what you see or hear. You are inclined to have a reaction, minus a driving force motivating you to show your feelings

3. Dead pan: what, something just happened? Why is everyone freaking out? Is this really a big deal, or can I go back to my crossword and pretzels? I don't get the commotion. Emotional FREAKS are everywhere

4. Back it up: I can't believe he/she said that, that really hurts. I gotta get outta here. These people don't care about me. I would rather be alone, keep myself from their attacks. I knew I couldn't trust them; everyone's the same 

Self-assessment

I have to take a moment and decide which one of the four categories I fall into, and whether or not I have changed over the years, making this one of those progression or digression exercises and questions!

While you are figuring yourself out over there, I am going to work through this quiz in front of you.

I think I used to be rather high voltage and emotionally charged. I was, and still am in many ways, motivated to respond to situations I see happening all around me. Now, the question is, am I naturally high voltage, or was this learned behaviour, something I can blame on nurture, rather than nature? 

My parents both had explosive emotional reactions that in hindsight, didn't have a pattern I could discern: a child's perspective is a difficult one since they don't have the emotional maturity to understand what is happening, nor the words to explain what they are seeing and hearing. The why of situational emotions is rarely answered. 

My parents didn't explain their intensity, I had to interpret it. This was stupefying to me as a little person. Other people's big expressions sometimes dumb down our own capability to emote: plus, children are often taught to be silent in the face of a parent that gives themselves permission to express anger... their is a size and strength imbalance, to say the least. As I aged, and developed the ability to separate myself from other, I had more time to think and figure out, what charges me up, if anything at all? What do I feel deeply or strongly about, enough to react, speak my piece/peace, state a case, have an opinion, step into the fray... 

The high voltage part of me is always connected to injustice; the maiming, injuring or hurting the vulnerable, the unsuspecting, the sweet and kind amongst us, that deserve to be treated gently. My nostrils flare and my heart races, the upper lip begins to lift on the left, and I could, if in the right situation, go after a would be perpetrator... someone that preys on others for fun or personal gain.  

As a mature adult, I can see that what I learned (nurture) growing up, was to have an opinion. I am so grateful for this! Now, this being said, I reiterate that while I am a mature adult, I know that high voltage reactions of the emotional variety, do not serve me, or necessarily anyone else, very well. Emotions colour thinking, and a cool head is more trustworthy than a hot one!

So... I am a 1-2... I feel, but I am not always driven or motivated to act. I choose my battles, and when I experience a super charge, I give myself time to cool my jets. This is known as self-control, discipline, conservatism, temperance. Time alone to think, to pray, to check in with someone trustworthy, to read God's Word, all help me sort what my feelings mean, and what I am to do with them. Here is the formula I offer you:

Emotions: 

INFORM us to use good judgment and ought to 

INSTRUCT us in the words we speak, and the actions we take, in order to;

INFLUENCE outcomes

You, influence others, dear reader. You, have impact. You, make a difference.

Our emotions are internal barometers giving us a read on what we are perceiving. We have to check in and figure out, what is going on inside of me that I need to sort and direct productively, for my own sake and the sake of those that share living and working space with me. 

When you scroll to the quiz, ask yourself:

● Am I a hot head, sparks a flyin' with my emotions on fiery display

● Am I a cool customer, able to assess people, places and things, with a sound mind

● Am I emotionally flat and disconnected, self-absorbed and disinterested in other

● Am I emotionally immature, fearful, and inclined to self-protective preservation

It wouldn't hurt if you got a pen and some paper, and figured some of these things out, dear reader. Well, this was fun, I hope you enjoyed yourself too?! Before we part ways:

NOTE UNO: I made the quiz up. It is officially a work of my own creation, based on self and other observation, and some take aways from my graphoanalysis text book. 

Feel free to use it to label your own friends and family 😂 ... 

NOTE x DEUX: Hello, what do you think text book writers do? They make up their own stuff, presenting themselves as clever smarty-pantsz, and get people to believe they know it all... half the "research" study reports we read and believe are BOGUS for goodness sakes. Fudging statistical figures is what people do to get grants paid for by sponsors to promote PROPAGANDA. 

NOTE x TRITOS: This writer, the one that calls you dear reader, is an unpaid partisan. I belong to the FREEDOM party, as in the Truth will make you FREE...

I rely on Providence to pay my way, and I cannot be bought, sold, rented out, mortgaged, reassigned, rearranged, dismissed, muted. 

⁉️ How about you, dear one? 

⁉️ To whom do you pledge allegiance, and belong? 

Bravery

Bravery is a full time job. God is taking applicants, do you care to apply? 

Satan loves to homogenize, meaning: he wants to make us similar or uniform to him. And I have to tell you, he is doing one hell of a job! He recruited far and wide for his crew of criminals, and they appeared in droves to find out what the pay was, and then what dastardly deeds they had to commit to collect that paycheque. I could list a few of them here, but I am confident you already have a list of wayward men and women formulating in your thoughts. 

It isn't the mercenaries that I am considering as I type, it is the brave. Bravery requires a certain resolve that comes from conviction. We all live on a slippery slope, and the wicked have slicked it up with lots of slime... for instance:

When I heard that there was a "mandate" to wear masks, I was convinced no one would do it! No one would wear a thing on strings over their nose and mouth... it was so foreign a concept to me, that I thought it utterly ridiculous that anyone would do such a silly nonsensical thing! The masks appeared en masse, and to my shock and horror, I was in a position of having to decide... do I go along with this, to keep myself from standing out in a see of clothed faces, or do I stick with my initial opinion of the whole idea being beyond absurd, and remain fresh and open faced? 

Fresh and opened face was my stand, or should I say, public statement. This garnered me verbal attacks from strangers, with vulgar words loudly shot my way as bystanders witnessed, muted by their masks. Yup... and I wasn't the only one: some people were assaulted, and I thank God I was kept from that kind of abuse. 

Next, the ludicrous misleading of the masses into social distancing... God Lord, this made me irate. I do not like to be bossed around, but worse then this, people were so willing to do as they were told... lambs to the slaughter comes to mind. I walked as I chose, in the direction I wanted, when arrows would have me go this way, rather than that; when humans were told to stand on a spot and wait until they were waved ahead, NEXT, to be served by other humans, I made sure I went when it was my turn, not when someone told me to go... and I wasn't Johnny, or Jane! waiting on his/her spot either... nope! And dear reader, while I lost almost all of my clients because they did as they were commanded and removed themselves from society to hide in their homes, I kept my business and home open, to those that were brave and refused to comply with propagated lies. I lost many a friend to their own fear, but gained so much more in the way of associating with faithful followers of Jesus Christ, that decided fellowship was more important than fear of being reprimanded by the reprobate. 

The ladies that attend my Bible study have reconciled themselves to the Saviour, and cling to him as their strength and light in a darkening world. I admire them greatly, and realize it truly is faith that makes us boldly brave. We are weaklings without God's might for what is right. 

Next stop on my history tour... those damn shots, dear reader. How is it that some people had this information, and others had conflicting other information? Satan loves him some chaos, and while he is the father of lies, we humans suffered the ramifications via global deception. The Truth cannot be buried, it is known to Resurrect, and that is exactly what is happening, and has been for quite some time. People are discovering who had the correct information, and who had the faulty, misleading information: the consequences are currently dire for those that did those shots; and for those of us that love them and are concerned for their present and future well-being, our concern is constant. 

One more bone of contention, now that I have your attention. I may be poking a soft spot in your psyche here, but I have a reason, so please bear with me. If you were like me and knew that what was happening, was a disturbing assault on the human race, and you decided to get fake passports or paperwork to allow you entrance into forbidden places without those dreaded shots, then you were part of the problem: you colluded with the enemy. I had to say this, dear reader, because you and I are still here, and bravery is a full time job, as I stated above. 

If you were a weak link in the faith chain, and gave in to ungodly demands, you must confess your sins and ask God for forgiveness... you chose wrongly and it worked against all of us. You helped the cause, aiding and abetting the enemy. Your work around was dishonest, and cowardly... and you can be like the apostles, AFTER Jesus appeared to them. You can see your sins, and profess that you will sin no more, when the next round of attack comes our way, and of course, it will. 

When people spoke out against the shots, the distancing, the masks, I ask you, were they brave? I think so, and I say this knowing you may think me self-congratulatory since I was always one to speak and stand out; but I have to say that bravery starts long before we are publicly tested. It starts with conviction: being certain of something, or Someone, before we get caught up in the whirlwind. 

What are you certain of now, dear reader? So much time has passed, and reflection upon what we all have said and done, rightly or wrongly, can give us insights into how we move forward. 

• Will we link arms, bravery leading the way, and wall off the enemy from entering in? If you and I are the strong ones, will we protect the weak, the vulnerable, the currently innocent, and give them a chance for a future with freedom as their right? 
• Will you cave in as a coward, or will you put on your battle armour, the armour of God, and fight the good fight, with Truth and the Word as your weapons?

What's it going to be, dear one? 

Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee (Deuteronomy 31:6)