Loving Just One... then you can Love Many

Yesterday I became aware of a situation in a friend's life that needs our love, prayer and attention. His name is Mike, and he is going through very difficult times right now. He is not only physically unwell, but living with his elderly mother, trying to support her with his very limited pension, but there are other difficult and extreme factors involved as well. They are in dire financial and spiritual need. Please, I would ask each of you reading this, to pray for Mike & his family. I was in contact with others via email concerning this situation, and this morning I received this answer;

Hi Ruth.
thanks for telling me about brother mike and his family. Christ our Lord and our God and Saviour, Our true friend and brother who worships the father even as we sing our praises to him also. Jesus told us how that our father seeks those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. And that our love for others would be even greater, our great apostle Paul told us to love not only in words but in deeds and in truth. Even Jesus told us a new commandment I leave with you, to love one another. The gospel about God's kingdom that even now we live in is so simple.. it is based on love.. love for God in Christ and for our neighbor. our master spoke of his kingdom and said to be blessed in his kingdom.. then to give when asked.. all that really matters in our church meetings and theologies and doctrines is, "Are we impacted by God, have we met him? did he get a hold of us?" If we have realized his love for us then we can, not only be free from the devil and this world of darkness, but also even from our selves..lay down our lives for others for God so that we might gain our selves or gain more of the eternal life in Christ in our spirits, so that we will be set free and find our selves deepin Christ in life & in the spirit .. into his kingdom of light and out of darkness or self centeredness and into Christ our God . who is our true source and supply.. in him we are blessed with all of heaven that even now this beats in our hearts. if we can love just one then we can love many.. Jesus asked peter 3 times do you love me .. peter said yes lord you know all things that i do.. jesus then told peter.. feed my sheep

Gratefulness, Contentment & Peace in HIM

Hello everyone and of course Happy New Year!

I was being reflective last night, thinking back over the year and feeling much gratefulness rise up in my heart over God's goodness to me.

My hope is that this warm gratefulness would continue to find it's way deep in my heart, and in yours too.

Along with being grateful is a sense of contentment in Him, knowing that Father has been with me, never leaving me. Ultimately He is truly taking us from where we are to where we need to be, the direction and plan's for our lives are all in place. This brings great peace to me as well as for those I know and love. We are all where we are. The good news seems to be that Father is loving us deeply and working in us and through His plan which includes a continuing marveling at the depth of His grace.

I hope to find myself this year caught up deeper in this attitude of gratefulness and contentment.

And thank you to each of you for the smiles and lovely imprints that you have left
in my heart.

The Drying Up Process

December 30th.
Oswald Chambers
"AND EVERY VIRTUE WE POSSESS"
"All my fresh springs shall be in Thee." Psalm 87:7 (P.B.V.)

Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He re-makes the whole man on the inside. "Put on the new man," i.e., see that your natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience!

The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them, depending on what they have by the accident of heredity. God does not build up our natural virtues and transfigure them, because our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every bit of our bodily life into harmony with the new life which God has put in us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.

"And every virtue we possess
Is His alone."

Trials

Lately, Father is constantly at work in me, creating within me needs through situations which I find myself in - where He is the answer; where I need Him to help me get His perspective of simple faith and peaceful trust in Him. He has the answer, the only answer, because He is the answer. He is always the answer.

Often it seems it's things going on with the children. God is so faithful. Now what is happening is I have noticed a sudden loss of strength in my right arm. Though I am still fine and capable to use my arm, I have significant loss in my arm when I lift anything heavy & there is pain associated with the movement. It has been investigated preliminarily and the only negative result found was a low potassium blood level. I would appreciate your prayers for me ! I have another doctor visit scheduled this Monday. It seems the last few months have been one consecutive trial after another - one is resolved, then quickly another appears. I am sure you can relate. Still in all I am very thankful for so much and trust God will continue to keep my heart where it needs to be.

When I think back to the last few weeks, and what He has been doing is allowing circumstances and situations in my life, that, though they trouble me and are definitely trials for me, I am truly convinced that they are there for the purpose of God getting me closer to Him; (as I said in the previous post of Wanting More) and deeply aware of His divine presence / love over all my life.

When I am in a trial and struggling, it brings me peace knowing that God is in control. It seems ironic that we mankind, can actually think we are in control, but we do. We all do. Realizing I am not or never have been in control always stretches me and causes me to just release to Him the factors in my life that really, when I have His perspective, I do not have control over anyway.

Though this seems simple to grasp in our minds, in reality it is a struggle in our hearts & in our relationships because of human nature. Unfortunately religious practices have definitely reinforced the idea that humanity can maintain control over our lives in respect to God.

Wanting More

Just a quick update.

The past few weeks have been very busy, which included a trip to Peterborough to meet Maureen (once again - I hope there are many more) followed by a whirlwind trip to Hamilton to pick up Angie, then home. Thank God for a safe, first-time-I-have-ever-drove-through-Toronto trip (and for great traveling companions!) Maureen was my compass and I don't think I could have done that without her: )

I am enjoying a SO quieter season right now. I was thinking this morning about the miracle of the fish and loaves. There was so much left over, wasn't there? There was as much as they could have really ever wanted :) and isn't it the same for us? There is as much as we want of Christ. There is still more, and more, and more.

Even as the people present at that miracle didn't at all realize that they could have actually had more - this has in much the same way happened to me. I have become very complacent in my heart and in my relationship with Christ. I am now realizing that there is so much more. God is awakening my heart to this truth ever so gently. I simply want to have more, and God has impressed it deeply upon my heart that there is definitely more of Him, and this, my friends, is exactly what I am after these days.

Break Time!

HI guys!

I think it's about time, I too, take a short break from blogging. This actually has been my second blog.

I want to get back to just enjoying my relationship with Father, including enjoying time spent in his Word with Him. And seeking out the fellowship that He has for me with others.

I have been finding recently that blogging has become another distraction, or a 'thing', a 'ritual' that I feel like I 'have to be doing' 'producing'. Daily if possible :)).

'A ritual to keep up with'. Which means it has become more about me than I realized, and most importantly, I have returned back to what I thought I was actually free from (light bulb experience here:)) .

I think we can be on the same track of religion, which -- though we say we have left -- still we are there -- if we think that God wants to speak through US day after day after day, to the multitudes. This is basically the same scenario as pastors sunday pulpit.
The only difference is perhaps they are in a building and we are on the 'internet'. But lately I am not seeing that as a difference, but a similarity. So I think I will just listen out there and get quiet again.

Though we have, or say we have, experienced change in certain areas, it's easy for me to see personally that the church mentality still exists and wants to operate and it will certainly use the 'blogging' mode as part of that, to take me back there.

love Ruth

Jewel's Gone

Hi everyone, I just wanted to tell you that my golden retriever died today.

We will all miss her. I remember before we bought her, we talked about whether we should get another dog for a while because our previous dog had died quite few years before that. Eventually we called & found a place nearby where there were golden retriever puppies for sale.

So off we all went to look at all the pups. When I first saw the Mom, she was so proper and beautiful. She was just sitting there all astute and regal looking. Why I actually chose Jewel was because of the demeanour of the mom. I thought wow I would like a pup like that!

The father of the brood was this handsome rugged beauty named Simba. He was just lovely too. He bounded across the yard in search of a long stick that he could quickly bring and deposit at our feet for a game of toss and fetch. He captured our hearts as well. He followed us everywhere we went around the property and eventually deposited himself with a huge thump at our feet while we talked to the owners. That wasn't the first thump we heard. There were several other 'thumps' as his huge tail swept across the floor and thumped up and down in joy to be right there amongst us.
Looking at the brood there were only two females remaining and we quickly decided on one (Jewel). She was only a few weeks old but she would be all ours by the time she was eight weeks old.

How long those eight weeks were! We kept watching the calendar in delight watching the days and weeks slowly pass by. WE kept laughing at the stories of Simba and how his tail was so big and noisy with all those thumps. We imagined Jewel being like her mom with a little bit of her dad thrown in & the anticipation was oh so great. When the day arrived to pick her up off the kids went with Ian to retrieve her, taking with them an old hockey coat of Ian's (to wrap her in) as well as a squeaky toy of some sort (I think it was a stuffed animal actually to carry the scent of the mom with Jewel.) Before long they had returned to the house with this beautiful pup all wrapped up in this great big coat with great big smiles on there faces, ear to ear. Every moment was spent loving her.



The terrors of having a pup as well as delights unfolded within the next several weeks. Delights such as dressing her up as a ballerina even. Back and forth to the adjacent field trying to train her (she quickly caught on). Before long we had purchased many items. I remember how she used to cry at night, the only way she would stop was to curl up on top of my husband's feet.

She turned into a real princess just like her mother. She had the same regal demeanour all the time and soon became properly behaved. As the years went by she began to grey a bit. One of the highlights of owning her was when our neighbors moved in and much to our delight they had a beautiful breeding stud named FALCO. He was also handsome and very big, a white retriever. It was always in our mind to 'introduce' him to Jewel because of course we wanted Jewel to have pups. Jewel was so regal and Falco was such a stud LOL. So finally the topic came up casually and much to our delight our neighbors were equally excited at the prospect of Jewel & Falco 'meeting' and having some babies.

Well it took a few visits before things happened, but within weeks we have on our hands seven golden retriever puppies. They were as you can imagine more delightful than any kid could hope for (or parents). Jewel decided to have the puppies very quickly and without any sort of problems. She was the mom we all knew she would be. She nursed them all fine with one pup we named Fatty who completely seemed to grow the quickest! Hours and hours were spent sitting in lawn chairs gazing at the pup's, watching them nurse, then fat bellies so hard to carry on such short legs, almost touching the ground, bums swaying back and forth! Visitors, family, everyone came to contribute to the oohing and awwing of watching them in tug or wars and rip roaring fights amongst the siblings. (Who would win? ) It was more fun than kid's hearts could hold back then.

As they grew, Jewel grew tired of the constant nursing and began to wean them, but they would follow her in circles as she denied them her milk. In came the bags of puppy chow as we mushed it all up and encouraged them to go for the other food. We eventually sold all the pups with Fatty hanging around the longest due to his size and parting with him was hard and tears were shed but the new owner promised we could visit, and sent pictures and stories of what a great family pet her turned out to be.

We kept one pup, named Diamond, who bounced around her Mom and kept her Mom on her toes and eventually often annoyed with her behaviour. So now Jewel is gone and we have all these great memories as a family of loving her and being so excited for having her, seeing her pups born. We will all miss her so much. It's especially hard for my daughter in university in Hamilton as she never got to really say goodbye to Jewel.