this one is fun too...

LOVE this song!

http://youtu.be/am6rArVPip8

Today did not start as well as I had hoped, but no one EVER hopes their day will be anything less than pleasant. Last night, I prayed for healing and a good following day, as a pressure ulcer has plagued my life the last five years. As with all days, God has his own plans and sometimes, those plans do not include pleasantries I deem necessary. This evening I started drawing: first a yellow scribble, then a purple, and then brown lines. As time went on, I noticed I had created a field of flowers. What started as chaos, eventually showed structure. Your life has structure as well (Jeremiah 18:1-6).

Eve

God built women with all the finest bells and whistles: beauty, laughter, wisdom, humility, modesty, maternity, hospitality.

There be none of Beauty's daughters --Lord Byron

There be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like Thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:

When, as if its sound were causing

The charméd ocean's pausing,

The waves lie still and gleaming,

And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o'er the deep,

Whose breast is gently heaving

As an infant's asleep:

So the spirit bows before thee

To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

for my C.

I'm in love, obsessed with the joy that you exist, more than just in my mind. You are the quintessential desire my heart has searched for, my counterpoint, my passionate princess.

Half-truths are still bold face lies...

just that. well, it's me blaming Verizon wireless. Man they love to slip in contracts where they said there was none.  gotta read customer agreement and ignore salesman baloney about what you're signing.

Vincent Bugliosi and Atheism

Good day L.A. had Vincent Bugliosi on the show today. it's astonishing to me when people don't believe in God; faith shifts a person's paradigm so fundamentally, they either see God as beautiful, personal, loving or...they see him not at all.

my night

this is my crucible; my breaking point was met with an ear piercing shatter.  My ability to listen, sharpened to a fine edge and in this refinement, he met me in my hurt. i am fortunate to be so loved; his grace has given me strength at the time when i fell and just before i was destroyed.  God loves a rescue just when we see our demise.  when WE see our position cornered, escape impossible, death of our financial situation or at worst our person inevitable, then we are truly ready for rescue and not before.

The Daniel plan has been the single most important diet plan I've ever tried.  Finally!  A plan that actually seems to be working for me, though it is working slowly.  Today, while I was doing my seventh week of the Daniel plan devotional, I got stuck on vitamins and minerals.  Fortunately, a nutritionist through the Dr. Hyman website, has been helping me decide on that myriad of Substances.  It is like shopping on the periodic table!  Calcium, zinc, copper, all these things in my supplement?  And it's making a lot more sense.  She said something that stood out to me.  In order of priority, whole foods first, then supplements, then medicine.

•     Whole food is the most important.  In my own opinion, whole foods present the most unknown factors that we know are good for us.  It has all the good ingredients, plus the supplement's and all wrapped up into, what I hope, is a tasty shell.  Spinach is wonderful for you.
•     Supplements: supplements are helpful, but how many?  Should I take calcium?  I'm actually osteoporotic, but I have no idea if I should be taking calcium?  Generally, I thought I'd take it with vitamin D and magnesium, but now I'm hearing different things.  Supplements are helpful and necessary in our nutrient starved diet, but we should be skeptical as to the motivations of the companies that are selling them and which ones we actually need.
•     Medicine: for all too long, I have relied on medicine as a last resort, which is smart.  The problem, I've also relied on it as by first resort with all my other first resorts?  I actually have.  I would take supplements like crazy, eat well, but not all the time, and then sat down pills.  Is there some way I can handle my spasms, my nerve pain, my depression, cholesterol, without medicine?  It seems so with a few of those.

      learning from her that this is the priority, helped me greatly.  the Daniel plan has not helped me lose any weight yet, as far as I can tell, my nerve pain is not gone and my spasms run amok.  However, I am reporting feeling better, secure, more happy… Happy?  I cannot believe I'm saying that one, given might radical mood swings, depression, anger and the fact that I'm stuck in bed – exasperating all of it.  I've love to blame my condition for many aspects of my life, but I am realizing this: I make bad decisions.  I make them often; as I get older, hopefully, the blinders will slowly peel away and I would think more like God.  I wrote to a friend today and said this regarding his own troubles:

• It's unfortunate that the earlier mistakes we make in life affect us, at times, LATER in life.  I am now realizing in spades, my bad choices with food, my condition, my job choices, whether I worked hard or not, are all having a profound effect on everything going on currently with my life.  I am bedridden now and have few options of healing.  You know how you just use up those lifelines?  Before you know it, though the phrase is more accurately stated "before you are WILLING to know it", you've ran out of those lifelines; you have used them up and now the hour is late.  I'm feeling ALL of the effects of these years of bad choices.  I've always known that God "turns up the heat" on people when they're making bad choices, but now, I know he turns it up slowly.  He is full of grace, turning up the heat slowly to give us a chance to live life by our own decisions.  As with Israel, the best example of his relationship with humanity, it was not immediately that he punished them, but after years of disservice.  CS Lewis said through Screwtape, in the book I told you about, "The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”  It's amazing how fast time goes, but you don't notice it while you are in the moment.  While you are making your mistakes about whether that mistake be an extra shot of rum or, in my case, staying longer on the videogame and choosing ice cream over an Apple – the consequences come slowly.
• But I fret not!  God also likes to see that we turn back to him.  He moves us to realize this fact of life and that we are ready to trust him completely.  When we hear the still small voice, that whisper in our ears advising us on our contemplations, maybe NOW we will think to listen.  I will continue to keep your daughter in prayer.  Life really is about his glory and his desire to give us OUR desires, at least what is true in our hearts.  [excerpt deleted]