Email: THE BLOOD

I got this email the other day and since it touched me so much, I thought that I would share it...

One night in a church service a young woman felt the tug of God at her heart. She responded to God's call and accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

The young woman had a very rough past, involving alcohol, drugs, and prostitution, but, the change in her was evident. As time went on she became a faithful member of the church. She eventually became involved in the ministry, teaching young children, and it was not very long until this faithful young woman had caught the eye and heart of the pastor's son.

The relationship grew and they began to make wedding plans, and this is when the problems began..You see, about one half of the church did not think that a woman with a past such as hers was suitable for a pastor's son.

The church began to argue and fight about the matter, so they decided to have a meeting. As the people made their arguments and tensions increased, the meeting was getting completely out of hand.

The young woman became very upset about all the things being brought up about her past. As she began to cry the pastor's son stood to speak. He could not bear the pain it was causing his wife to be.

He began to speak and his statement was this: "My fiancee's past is not what is on trial here. What you are questioning is the ability of the blood of Jesus to wash away sin. Today you have put the blood of Jesus on trial. So, does it wash away sin or not?" The whole church began to weep as they realized that they had been slandering the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Too often, even as Christians, we bring up the past and use it as a weapon against our brothers and sisters or even ourselves. Forgiveness is a very foundational part of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the blood of Jesus does not cleanse the other person completely then it cannot cleanse us completely. If that is the case, then we are all in a lot of trouble. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! End of case!!!!

NOW... Is THAT something to be thankful for!!!???

Joining Angela’s "Tuesdays' Show & Tail" Meme

Today, I’m doing a post to join Angela’s "Tuesdays' Show & Tail" Meme! It is a meme to share about past or present pets or furry friends we’ve known. If you’d like to join, here is the link to the Guidelines. Oh, and I'd like to thank Angela, too, for the wonderful gifts she sent for winning a prize in her give-away. The Snowflakes are just so cute and so are the reindeer scissors!

My Daddy passed away on November 29, 1969 when I was 17 years old. He was very special to me and taught me so very much about love and about loving animals. We always had animals around us at our house… from snakes, raccoons, peacocks, dogs, cats, chinchillas, rabbits, and even a raven that he saved when it’s nest was knocked down. Stinker, was in pin-feathers when he brought him home and lived to the age of 25 years old.

Of course, we also had all of the regular farm type animals even though we really didn’t live on a farm. My Daddy loved animals of all kinds. After he passed away, I was given his wallet by my family. In it were several pictures of the things that he loved. There was a picture of him and my Mama on their wedding day…

Pictures of my sisters and me on a few special occasions…

and two pictures of the goat that he’d had when he was a kid. He was so proud of that goat and loved her very much.

He’d named her Peggy, and she gave two gallons of milk a day, he’d proudly told me as he taught me how to milk the goats we had.

This is Thanksgiving week and I thought I’d post this as I think about how very Thankful I am to God, to have been blessed by having this wonderful, special man for my Daddy, as well as sharing how much he cared about his special fur-friend, Peggy and all the other animals that he taught us to love and care for. I don’t think I’d have been a very good “Country Grammy” without the influence of my wonderful Daddy!

The Truth Shall Set You Free..

I’ve heard this verse before MANY times during my life... and learned about it... and it has given me hope, etc. but I heard someone on TBN talking about it in a different (for me) way that gave me something to think about.

“You shall know the Truth, and the truth shall set you free…” One BIG truth that I need to remember is that God loves ME AND, has a PLAN for MY life.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NKJV) says:

11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.


God wants to be MY Father… my DADDY, and ADOPT me which makes me a daughter of the God of the UNIVERSE! A much loved Princess (somehow, I have a hard time seeing myself in that position.)

When I choose to follow Him and grow spiritually, THEN He will make ALL things work together for good… HE will help ME to grow because He has put HIS Holy Spirit within me and made me a NEW creation. As I am faithful in a little, and prove I can be trusted with that “little” (following His Word more and more) then He will add the MUCH—the POWER to do more and more to bring glory to Him and happiness and fulfillment to me!

How’s THAT for Truth that will set you FREE! Now… if I can just keep that in my MIND, heart and soul…

Faith and Thankfulness…

I heard someone last week, that said that “Faith is believing in a God that we can’t see AND deciding that HE should be in charge of our lives BECAUSE He is wiser than we are.”

It is true that I’ve never seen God’s (physical) face, but I have seen the work of His hands in the earth and in the sky, and in the things that He has done for me throughout my life. He gave me very special parents and Christian teachers and mentors, and though my wonderful Daddy died in 1969 when I was 17, I can see now that God has used that horribly wrenching experience to lead me into paths I never would have taken if he hadn’t been taken to Heaven. I KNOW that he loved God and I will see him again, too.

I saw how He worked in my Mom’s life and her faith as she struggled to raise me and my two younger sisters. I saw how He blessed that faith and took care of us over the years. I saw her faith in Him, even as she struggled to fight the cancer that finally sent her to Heaven, too, in 2001. Faith, Hope and Love are so much a part of each other, working together to help us grow in God's Kingdom!

I saw many miracles as I worked in a place called the Upper Room Drug and Crisis Center in San Jose during the time I attended San Jose Bible College in the early 70's. All of these things have helped to build my faith over the years.

I’ve seen God working in my children’s lives and the way that He has miraculously saved their lives over the years and helped them as they’ve followed Him. I’ll have to put in some of those stories here in the future.

The more I’ve seen, the more my faith has grown so that I can pray in faith and power, when it is needed. I’ve learned that FAITH is the opposite of worry (and vice versa), and that worry short circuits the FULL power that God can bring to bear on my problems when I DO trust in Him fully.



I am a truly “God Blessed” person, and I am so very thankful to Him for HIS Faithfulness to me. I know that He loves me, even though I have made some bad mistakes in my life, but through HIS mercy, He has forgiven me, and given me peace for the most part. I still stumble and have a tendency to not forgive myself sometimes, but He keeps reminding me of His love for me… and for THAT I am truly thankful!

Great Books…

I’ve found some new (to me) Christian Authors recently, and I’ve been enjoying their work so much! The newest one is Karen Kingsbury. I’ve seen her name many times in the literature I get as Church Librarian, but recently, someone donated some of her books to the Library, and while checking them over for appropriateness, I’ve gotten totally hooked!

I’m reading the third one in the “Forever Faithful” series, and these books have all be “edge of the seat” stories that it’s almost impossible to lay down! The characters are all totally real with major problems in their or their friend’s lives, but through the faithfulness of God, they come to find that “Peace that passes understanding” in their lives. The first book in this series is, “Waiting for Morning,” and it is about a woman, Hannah, who is filled with anger, hate and overwhelming pain in her life when her husband and her oldest daughter are killed by a drunk driver. Hannah’s youngest daughter, Jenny, who was also in the car, and survived the accident in body, is deeply damaged emotionally.

The story is heart-wrenching and draws the reader in because we have all experienced these emotions from things that have happened in our own lives. Mrs. Kingsbury is an excellent story teller and pulls no punches about real life problems, but leads her readers to see that God is “Forever Faithful,” to be with us, whether or not we are open to Him when we are blinded by life’s difficult circumstances.

I totally recommend this book, for it reminded me again that the people who are the “thorniest” are often so full of pain and anger that they can’t see anything else, and though they may be the hardest to “love,” they need it the most. I need to remember that God wants to love them through me…

An Old Indian Story…

I heard a story once that has always stuck with me. It was about an old Native American Indian who was talking to a traveling preacher. The preacher knew that the Indian had accepted the Lord a while back and was asking how he was doing in his faith.

The Indian told him, “ I feel as if there is a black dog and a white dog fighting within me… one leading me toward evil and the other toward good!”

The preacher asked, “Which dog is winning?”

The Indian answered, “ The dog that I feed the most!”

This story explains why I try to spend a lot of time during the day listening to Christian TV programming or Christian Radio, why I read good Christian fiction, and why I read my Bible everyday. I want the White Dog to win within me. The more of the Bread of Life that I eat, and the more of the Living Water that I drink, the stronger my reborn spirit will become and the faster it will grow.

Puppies and Rainbows…

I have had so much fun watching Dott’s puppies as they play and learn over the past few weeks. Sure, they take a lot of work, too, but the joy they have brought into my life has made it well worth it.

Ok… so I take pleasure in some of the simple things in life, but letting God take care of my cares, and taking time to smell the roses or watch the Corgis play, makes life so much more satisfying than stressing about things that “may” happen, or things that I can’t do anything about anyway.


That is what is so wonderful about Corgi Country. It is a haven away from traffic, noise, and other sources of stress. I can always turn off the TV and listen to music or even just listen to the birds sing, or the horses munch on their hay. Doing what the Bible says in Matthew 6:34 has become my main philosophy of life I think… At least since I’ve tried to follow it this past year, and it has worked well for me! Essentially, it says to take one day at a time and don’t worry about tomorrow.

After all, I don’t even know if I will be here tomorrow (freak car accident, stray bullet, meteor coming through the ceiling, etc.), and if I’ve taken care of the important things between myself and God, then THAT isn’t a problem, so I need to just do what I need to do each day to keep things in running order.

I need to be careful not to add the world’s problems to my shoulders by feeding my brain depressing stuff I can’t do a thing about anyway… that doesn’t mean not to do my part, like voting intelligently according to my principles, but so many times I sit there and watch T.V. shows that just put junk into my head. Computer people say, “Garbage In, Garbage Out,” when talking about programming a computer, and some of those principles apply to what I allow to go into my brain.


Each day, I try to make an effort to feed my brain good things… things that bring joy and peace, and cut back on things that bring me down. This has been shown, by numerous studies, to lengthen a person’s life, by lowering blood pressure, and the levels of stress hormones in the body that tears it down over time… I try to take a walk with a loved one, or a dog (same thing actually) and really LOOK around. I look at the paintings God has created for me in the sky... I try to look at the rainbows in the diamonds of dew on the leaves, grass or a spider’s web. I watch a comedy or read a funny or uplifting book. I try to feed my brain good things!

I’m taking steps toward a more peaceful way of living each day, and trying to make it my way of life…

My Comfort…

I heard someone talking about this, and it really touched me…

Those loved ones that have died as Christians, are NOT only in your past, BUT are also in your future, so LOOK FORWARD to seeing them again as one of those treasures that are laid up in heaven, instead of looking backward, unless it is with good memories, and living in the past which only leads to depression…

Of Possums and God…

Hubby and I went to the $2 show last weekend to see Ice Age 3… Yes, we are big children at heart. Anyway, it was pretty good, too, but not quite as good as the first two… almost, though, and well worth the $4. Actually, the second one will probably always be my favorite to look back at because of what happened with my 4 year old Grand-niece while we watched it.

During the movie, they were talking about a girl Mammoth that had been raised with Possums, and thought that she WAS a Possum. The boy Mammoth spent a lot of the movie trying to convince her that she was a Mammoth and NOT a possum because they were (they thought) the last mammoths left. Toward the end of the movie, a big cataclysm happened that broke open one end of their glacier enclosed valley, and a whole herd of Mammoths came lumbering over the hill. It was a VERY touching moment…

My little Grand-niece piped up, quite loudly… “Oooo… Look at all the POSSUMS!!!” It about broke up the house!

“Look at all the Possums….” Sometimes, we THINK we know about what/who God is because we have been taught various things, but do we really? The only way that I can REALLY know who God is and some of the way He thinks is to read my Bible. It is His love letter to me to help me understand the way He is, the way He thinks, and the way HE created the world to work…

Father, Forgive them...

“Father, Forgive them for they know not what they do…” I have heard these words that Christ spoke, taught on many times before. I’ve always heard it said that Jesus was speaking of the people that crucified him when he spoke those words. My son and I were talking about this today, and he said that he wonders if maybe Christ, who the Bible says died for ALL men’s sins, wasn’t thinking about ALL men at that moment. (You may have heard or thought of this before but I hadn't)

As I thought about that, I occurred to me that it would make sense. When He said those words, THEN, He was thinking about each of US… those He knew that would be born and accept Him and what He was doing for us. God says that “while we were still sinners, Christ loved us enough to die for us.”

Before we REALIZED that we were sinning, and before we repented and asked for His forgiveness and accepted His free gift of life, He prayed to the Father… “Forgive them… For THEY know NOT what they do.” There will never be a GREATER love for each of us! Thank You, Lord, for Your sacrifice, and Thank You, God, for your love for me, and for those I love.