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 needed tools to break down walls of destruction in my life. 

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 needed tools to break down walls of destruction in my life. 

In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning says, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” May you come to the awareness of how deeply you are loved by your God today. May you allow God to love what you have deemed unlovable in your own life. And may Zephaniah 3:17 be a foundation on which you experience the overwhelming joy that comes from God’s inexplicable love for you.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”Zephaniah 3:17

“Every choice you make is a step toward or away from the person you want to become. No single choice will get you where you want to go. Only repeated steps over time in the same direction will move you forward.” — Shane Parrish

Zephaniah 3:17. Is a passage I have committed to memory.  

Just a thought by coppi

Stretcher friends…

Mark 2:4 – They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head.  Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus…….when Jesus saw their faith….after a confrontation with the scribes, He said to the man “arise & take up thy bed & walk…..he did and was healed!

Whenever I visit my friend in Vero Beach, we have a time of gathering on their back porch.  One time we were privilege to have her uncle visiting, who is a Methodist minister, speak on different topics of interest, I would jot down any that pulled my heart strings.  One in particular really jolted my being….”stretcher friends”.  He said they were your friends who stood by you no matter what debris the winds of life blew in.  They prayed, encouraged, listened & extended a helping hand.  He said if you have five or less, you are mightily blessed.  Yes, I do.  These friends have been with me through many storms & also rejoiced with me in the brightness of the sun.  I would label them “the hands, feet, ears, mouth, etc of Jesus” – God is a spirit & the body of Christ is his way of spreading his unconditional love. 

Just a thought by coppi

In order to protect our hearts from the pain and wounds of the world we both consciously and subconsciously build walls. These walls take all sorts of forms. Some walls are built for appearance so that outward beauty covers up inward brokenness. Some walls are built to be strong and tough so that pride and strength cover up inward vulnerability and self-consciousness. Some walls are built in order to blend in so that people pass us by altogether and never try to know us. Whatever wall we choose to build, one thing’s for certain: the walls might guard us from harm, but they also keep us from ever experiencing true life.  Greg Denison First 15 April 11, 2018

I looked up the definition of walls and found there were many kinds of walls – load-bearing walls, non-bearing walls, a high thick masonry structure forming a long rampart or an enclosure chiefly for defense, a mass of people or things formed in such a way that you cannot get through or past them, etc etc; but the walls I was interested in are the walls we build around us to protect people knowing our real self.

I liked Greg Denison analysis of walls we build around ourselves to keep disappointment, hurt, pain, etc from creeping into our souls.  Maybe you are one of the blessed that have not had to deal with hiding behind walls but I have.  I can remember every hurt I endured through life, I would say “not again” and up went a wall.  I can remember one time in Dallas, Texas, when I was trying to be accepted and please the world, I prayed; “Jesus, what do you want me to do and be”? Deep within I heard “Be yourself”.  It took many years to finally realize that is who He created me to be – ‘myself’.  In Ps 139:14-15 God talks about how he knew us before we were born and how wonderful his workmanship was in creating us to be exactly how he wanted us to be.  “Be yourself”.  If that is enough for God, I guess it’s enough for me.

Yes, the journey ahead includes deep waters. But the scripture promises, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…” (Isaiah 43:2).

And, He will not forsake you. 

Just a thought by coppi

I am a collector of many things I/we enjoy.  Our home is like a salad bowl – if it makes my heart sing, it finds a home in the salad bowl.  One of my favorite collections is rocks, and my favorite rock hails from Israel.  I love this rock, and the history behind it.  Following is an excerpt of its origin:

I have it displayed in a place where I can always walk by and bless it, and myself.  I love Israel, and took my mother there years ago.  Israel was on her bucket list, and her prayer was to go there someday.  Raising ten children by herself, my father died from injuries in World War 11, she probably thought that was an impossible happening, BUT with Jesus nothing is impossible- and I took her there.  My rock from Israel is a reminder of “nothing is impossible with God“.    It also reminds me of my mother being baptized in the Jordan River, healed in Capernaum, rode a camel in Egypt, saw Pharaoh’s mummified corpse, and walked the Via Delors’s, way of sorrows, plus many more places of biblical interest.  I knew she would never remember all the sights we went so I made a scrapbook with pictures, etc of all the places we went.  My beautiful rock from Israel is a treasure of memories I have tucked deep within my soul, and its presence in our home reminds me of them.  I feel blessed of being gifted with this treasure that houses so many memories for me,and its presence will always be there as a reminder of Israel, and Jesus who lives within my heart.

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

1 Peter 5:8

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”

—Rabindranath Tagore 

My life is a wonder of “I don’t understand miracles”; I truly want to sit and cry because I do not know how to feel about them.  The valleys were enormous, but the mountain tops leveled the enormity endured by them.

I got up this morning feeling tired from dealing with dreams of my past life. I have given my life to be a follower of Jesus; I have confessed every thing I know of my past that I think was displeasing to Him , and I know from reading the Bible if we confesses our sins to Him, we are forgiven.  Yet the tormentor,“satan”, enjoys putting doubts in your mind.  Ephesian’s 6:10 gives instructions on putting on the armor of  God to withstand satan’s arrows of attack.  In God’s word we can always find solutions to fight anything Satan throws at us.  ““In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬-‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Satan’s darkness cannot and will not overtake Jesus’ lightness – that’s a promise of our Lord.  We can stand on it, and for me, “that settles it”.

Just a thought by coppi

Is 60:1 says – Arise, shine, for your light has come.

Mal. 4:2 – The Son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.

Today turn your heart, mind and focus to the sunrise of the Lord and let His light & love overshadow everything else.

He, Jesus, is the one who overshadows everything else.  That means your problems will fade awtay.  Your worries will fade away.  Your sins will fade away.  Let Him overshadow everything else.  Let His love overshadow your fears.  Get so caught up in seeing Him who is the sunrise that the rest fades away.  He is the Mighty God & He loves you and only wants the very best for you.

Hope is when you believe, in the midst of a particularly hard winter, that spring will follow.”

—Norman Vincent Peale

If i had not had hope in my life when I was going through the throws of blasts of icy winds, I have no idea what chill factor I would have experienced.  Hope in my God is what  I held tightly too.  I knew if I did not waver from the promises 

of my Heavenly Father, summer would come and melt the ice cicles hanging from my heart.  Jesus is faithful to his promises  – Summer came and true to his promises, the ice cicles 

melted, and left puddles of icy water around my feet as a reminder “nothing is impossible with God.”   He is faithful to his word.