Early Summer… ahhh

What a wonderful time I had this weekend planting and working in the yard.  How could our creator have made so many varieties of plants?  Every shape, every size and every color, every smell is in bloom and beyond human words to describe the beauty and the fragrances.   Then there are the gorgeous hummingbirds – just unbelievable how they work.  How awesome our creator must be just to have created that little winged creature.

How great is my God – Sing to me, How great is my God…

I just can't stop praising my "Father" after seeing the abundance that He has provided for us all.   I think of Him creating everything from the beginning and all the purposes for each little life.  Do you know that every little bug has a purpose?  Do you realize how many little bugs he created? 

Stop and think about just the little beetles.  Did you realize that there are over 300,000 types of beetles?  Just 300,000 beetles – what the heck do we need 300,000 different beetles for? I guess He knows.  Talk about abundance! 

Boy when God does something – He sure does it to “Abundance.”    He also does it just perfect – How blessed we are to be on the “top” rung of his work and to be able to say “thank you Lord” for blessing me and "loving me in Abundance."

 What are your Blessings? 

Do you believe in God?

Did you know that the Devil (Satan) also believes in God?

The bible says “ You believe that there is one God.  Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.”           (James 2:19 – NIV)

It stands to reason that if you believe in God – then just believing isn’t what gets you to heaven.  How come?  Well, take a look at it – The Devil believes, but you’re not going to find him in heaven?  So what else do you think it is going to take to get to heaven, besides believing in God?

“The drug disease is no joke and it has done nothing but destroy me and my family but I will be damned if I am going to keep living for death.”

This is an excerpt from the last letter I just received from Dustin.  I believe that God is working in this young man’s life – in a big way.  All praise and glory to God the Father, for such a fantastic awakening in Dustin’s life.

“I will be damned if I am going to keep living for death”

I had a wonderful visit with my nephew, Dustin, this weekend and we talked about how he wants his future to be.   He will be graduating from “boot camp” on the 5^th of July and he is ready to begin life in the real world.  He has had many hardships to overcome, as I briefly explained in my previous posting.  Some major obstacles have completely overwhelmed him and others have had the greatest impact on him both physically and mentally.  Life’s lessons are never easy but some are worth learning and learning again.  How you handle these life experiences are what makes you successful and able to succeed in your future within society.

When you are 18 you have the entire world ahead of you.  When you are 18 and have experiences as much as Dustin (my nephew) has you can be very “untrusting” of everybody.  He has learned this past year, whom you should trust and whom you should not trust.  Just acknowledging that he could trust was a major event.  He had learned “not” to trust anyone.  Whoever he trusted always hurt him and led him astray.  As he now says, he has been “going around the mountain” over and over.  Praise God because Dustin is tired of “going” around the same old mountain.  He now knows that part of what he must do,  is stated in 1 Peter 5: 6-9:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith…

He is so excited about coming to live with my hubby and me and to have a secure place with a loving community to back him.  A place that is a new beginning for him.  When he talks about this happening, his eyes just twinkle and he shakes with excitement when he talks.  He is trusting in us and we are all trusting in God to continue the purpose he was created for from the beginning.  We know that it is going to take a lot of work – but he is excited about the chance to succeed and he wants to “stand firm in the Lord.”  He is asking only for the chance and we are willing to extend our hand in helping him – Just as God extended the same help to us.   As I have said before, we must all say: “there but for the grace of God – go I.”

 How could we "love" him and offered anything less than all that we have?

The waiting is over – the action is about to begin.  Today I’m off to Las Vegas, NV (is there any other?)  Sin capital of the world or so they say, and I guess it is or could be.  This trip is not to gamble, yet, I am taking a huge gamble in my life – this is a trip about “love” and breaking the hold of  “sin.”  This trip is about showing “God’s Love.”

You see, I will not only get to see and visit my Mother, Sister and Brother, but I will also get to visit my 2 nephews, both of whom are in different confinements, legally, city jail and PDR Boot Camp.  We will all get together this weekend during a few visiting hours and remember what family is about.  Love – and support and more love.

My one nephew is serving a year in a juvenile boot camp, again.  Why, why- you might ask?  One reason is that he stole another car and went “joy riding” with his friends, while they were all high on drugs, again.  Key word here is  - Again.    His life has been living on the streets of Vegas for a major part of his life, at least solid for the past five (5) years.  Now that doesn’t sound so bad until you realize he is only eighteen (18).  He has been on the move and out of school most of his life, since the 3^rd grade.  Maybe a total of 30 days a year, but different schools, always moving,  each year, year after year.   He and his brother and his Mother living on the streets, from flop to flop, from cardboard box to empty field to somebody’s car, to oversized gargabe bins to mattress in the shade.  Shade if they could find it in the hot summers and walking all nights up and down the streets when a place wasn’t available, because they had no place to lay down.  Working the streets and just surviving.  Always just surviving has been their lives for all these years. A little kid – lost in the cracks of life.  Learning to use life to survive.  I have watched on the sidelines – helpless – until now.

Have you ever thought how hard it is to go to school or get a job when you don’t have a home or a place to take a shower – or a phone for the employer to call you to come to work – or a place to hang your clothes or a place to wash your clothes, or even to know where you left your clothes?  Where did you slept last night, if you slept.   Think about that and then you might look at homeless person with more compassion.  You might also think, with compassion “there but for the grace of God – go I.”

Have you ever said – I wish I could do something and “help” that person?  Well – I am going to do just that (God and I have been talking)   - this weekend - I will let you know how it goes when I get back this Sunday.  Please pray for success and most of all – Please pray for God’s Love to be around all of us.  Amen