Just a thought by coppi

Just a thought by coppi – written in 2015

A light house does not blow fog horns but it only shines.  

When I read the above I thought of our walk as Christians.  Does our life reflect the light  of Jesus.  St Mark 4:21: and he said unto them, is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? And not to be set on a candlestick?  A candle beams its flickering light so we may find our way in the dark as does the Lighthouse.  As Christians we should let our light shine & walk in the light of Christ.  We need not blow fog horns but just shine & let the Holy Spirit beam through us.  Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord……i grew up in a very legalistic religion & if we did have a little light, it was totally blown out with dos & don’ts & lots of fear. 1 John 4:7: Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God….10: herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us & sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4 is filled with scriptures of love.  The pendulum swings both ways but should be in balance.  I guess my desire is not to be a fog horn but a flickering light for our Lord.

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.  (Isaiah 49:16)

I did a painting of Jesus’ holding my hands in His. I entitled it “IN His Hands”.    I read this scripture today, and loved the words “Your walls are ever before me”.  I like this definition “Walls are imprisonment and division.  They are often referred to as things we need to break down and overcome.”  When someone said something to hurt me, or I experienced a crushing blow, up would come a wall of protection.  I had built so many walls around me that the joy of living was expelled from my life.  I prayed, and a whisper of knowledge seemed to resonated in my mind – “knock down the walls”.   “How”?  It didn’t take long before I found the way. A dear friend of mine introduced me to a program called “A Way Out”.  I went.  I was one of many there struggling with pain behind barriers.  We learned to not hide behind separators, but to face them and be honest with our emotions.  Acceptance came through our honest confessions.  It wasn’t easy, but like so many folks going to  a similar program like Alcohol Anonymous and being honest with “Why”, they found freedom from alcohol.  My friend who recommended I go to “A Way Out” is now in heaven, but she saw through my enclosure (wall) and reached out her hand  and gave me a sledgehammer to start the process of needf7ed tools to break down walls of destruction in my life. 

Heavenly Father, every moment You have given us is an island ,an isolated thing of beauty.  May we live within the beauty of this moment and leave tomorrows worries for tomorrow.  Linda ChingSledge

“Don’t worry about tomorrow, God is already there”…these words were given to me by the person who was moving me back to Dallas from Oklahoma years ago. I left Dallas due to a very hurtful, disappointing, thirty-two marriage that ended in a disgraceful divorce.  But, that was then and this is now, and I was now returning with a promise given to me by a man who was moving me back to Dallas –  “Don’t worry about tomorrow, God is already there”.   Trust and believe. 

Storms are frightening.  We just recently experienced two – Helena and Milton.  We missed Helena that hit Sugar Mountain and North Carolina by only a few days, but I have friends still fighting to restore Sugar Mountain.  The damage in that part of our country was/is atrocious and frightful.  However, we came home to Milton.  The damage Milton did in and around our area was nightmarish.  Hugh trees housing trunks so large, pulled out of the ground, landing on tops of homes.  Storm surge water and debris everywhere. It was sickening and very frightening.  

In life, grim happens within us.  death, broken relationships. financial problems, sickness, on and on it goes causing wreckage in our souls and psyche.  In my life, I have gone through the surges and debris caused by these nightmarish times.  It was difficult.  I try to block the images from my mind.  I say “That was then, this is now”,  “Jesus was with me, and carried me through the pain” – “All that debris was surged out of me and I am alive and well”.  I gleaned from these experiences, and I try to stay away from cause and effect of anything lead by human doing, my doing, and life happenings. Jesus is my source.  I have given my life to Him. 

Just a thought by coppi

I read this today and have written a thought on “Keep your eyes on Jesus, not man”.  When I read the below comment by Dr Denison, I thought “Gee, I like this analysis, I want to share it with my friends on Just a Thought by coppi”.

Separate the message from the messenger.

When doctors fail us, we don’t reject medicine. When lawyers act corruptly, we don’t reject the law. Christianity never promised that Christians would be perfect. Our hope is not in the preacher but in the One being preached.  (Dr. Denison)

Just a thought by coppi

I read the following quote by Dr Chas Swindall in one of my devotional readings today and wanted to share it with my “just a thought” readers.  Attitude does play a role in a happy and joyful life.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and this is our attitude…

I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me, and 90c percent how I react to it”.

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

We are like snowflakes.  “Snowflakes can symbolize joy, delicacy, clarity, and transformation. But their most important symbolic meaning is that of uniqueness because every snowflake is different.”

It’s very hard to be me, because, speaking for myself, I am/was a people pleaser.  I desire to be liked/loved.  But true happiness is, I found, is being me – different, yes, but being comfortable in my own skin is what makes me happy.  Being me, the one God fearfully and wonderful made (Ps 139) took a lot of years to become.  The world is full of people – different opinions, different cultures, different physically, different-different.  I don’t want to twist you in my image and I don’t want you to twist me in your image.  Love looks beyond differences-love looks at “you”, a very special snowflake who is in a world of many differences.  Be you….love you.  You are wonderfully and fearfully made.

Just a thought by coppi

“Rejection is God’s Protection”

Protection is the act of keeping something or someone safe from harm, damage, or loss. It can also refer to the state of being protected. For example, you might say “Their tent offered little protection against the storm”. 

I read this today, and thought “Oh my, I have been down that road too many times in my life”.   Disappointed and hurt, definitely yes.  I still remember years ago when I was going to a small one-room country school, I had a very good friend who would not speak to me the next year.  In the country life, we did not get to see our friends after the school-term ended, because of the distance between our home and theirs. Fields apart. Yes. I was hurt.  Tears didn’t change the situation.  Time did.   Approximately fifty years later, I received a letter of apology from her;  she was so sorry and she loved me.  I don’t know why I was protected with this exclusion – maybe to prepared me from future pain of rejection.  My ways are not God’s ways.  I do know that through life, I was definitely shielded through rejections;  I looked back at my long life, I made mistakes doing things my own way.   Yes, I do believe I was sheltered by God.  Life is a voyage – we trek along making mistakes, learning through them (if we will), and moving on with an invisible protection of God.   

“Psalm 32 is a psalm of David that is about the joy of forgiveness and the importance of confessing sins to God. It is a penitential psalm that expresses David’s experience of being forgiven for his sins and his renewed appreciation for God’s grace.”

Just a thought by coppi

“Come now, insignificant man, fly for a moment from your affairs, escape for a little while from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside now your weighty cares and leave your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a little to God and rest for a little in him.” ― Anselm

When you  expect good things from God, you  get good things from God! The psalmist prays “Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart” (Psalm 90:12). Every day is a gift from God; celebrate it.

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.  Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Ps 143:8

When we don’t understand something about God, some people are tempted to discredit him completely. My friend Andy Stanley said, “You don’t have to understand everything to believe in something.” (Craig Groeschel)

Do I understand everything about God.  No.  But I do know, I don’t know what I would do if I did not believe in Him.  He has been my constant companion for as long as I can remember.  Even when I did not understand the whys in my life or the happenings in this world…..I chose to believe in Him.

“Each step you take brings you closer to home.  Before you know it, you’ll enter the City.  You’ll hear your name spoken by those who love you.  And maybe, just maybe—in the back, behind the crowds—the One who would rather die than live without you will remove his pierced hands from his heavenly robe and…applaud.”  Max Lucado 6/1/19

Yes, that’s one of our Lord’s promises that we will see our loved ones again.  Not only my beloved family and friends, but also my dear little pets who loved me and I them.  I believe there will be a lot of rejoicing and love among the redeemed – it will be quite a celebration of joy and delight.  But I also want to see Jesus and His nail print hands applauding and hear his voice say “welcome home”.

I read the following this morning by Henry Nouwen – it spoke to my heart. I wanted to share his words.    

I realize how deeply the death of a parent touches us. We suddenly realize that some of the most intimate ties are broken and that we are called to let our parents move away from us and their place in history.

And still I also believe that absence might lead to the awareness of a new presence. Lately, I have found much comfort in the words of Jesus: “It is for your good that I leave, because unless I leave my Spirit cannot come.” Jesus’ leaving meant that he would become more intimately present to us, that he would unite himself in a new way with us. Because of his death we can say: “Not I live but Christ lives in me.” I have a feeling that this is not just true of Jesus, but in and through Jesus of all people who leave us. In their absence we can develop a new intimacy with them and grow. We even can become more like them and fulfill their mission in life until the day comes that we too have to leave so that our spirit can stay with those we love. In this way mourning can slowly turn into joy, and grief into rebirth.  Henry Nouwen