iT IS THE TEAR (THAT RESULTS) FROM THE INJURY OF THE OYSTER.

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 "A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear [that results] from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl." 

Stephan Hoeller

Have you been asked on many occasions how you got through a certain challenge in your life? I have, almost on a daily basis. But today, I am tired. I am tired of the trying and the challenges. I am again locked in depression. My questions to myself today are what are you going to do about it? My answer today? NOTHING! That is what I am going to about anything today, nothing.

Friends and family that “know me well,”” really well,” know that is not who or what I am, but today I am, just that. I am tired of the daily challenge to raise others when I can barely raise myself anymore.  Then I read this: “Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.” Psalm 71:20  

Followed Shortly by this:

A letter sent from Anne Sendai, Japan 03/14/2011 By The Waking Circle March 20, 2011

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out a sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

It's utterly amazing that where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and love of me,
With Love in return, to you all,
Anne

God gives us everything we need, we just need to ask where to look.

"We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with."

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 My post yesterday talked about how, after reading a comment a woman made on a

NAMI blog, set my mind to reeling. Well, it did not stop there. It seems that this one discovery had led me down a path, not by my own choosing but on the path anyway. The attempt to shake my faith failed, and I am here to tell you that that is how fleeting moments are, and how powerful they can be. The devil slides in whenever he can and tries to take our faith from us. He is constantly trying to break our faith to satisfy him/herself. I was happy to read this today that led me back to the path I belong on.

"We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with." Roman 6:6 

I was barely a glimmer in God's eye, yet part of his plan long before I was born. We were all there on the cross in Christ's heart. This is explained in Roman 5 12:21. Here Paul explains that we were all subject to death through Adam, so we can all receive the gift of  new life through Christ. 

"There is still sin in us, but it is no longer my master. Jesus is." When he died and rose, so did we, and that reality changes everything. 

Whatever is happening in our life, even when we sin, we must all remember that Christ has already taken our sin, not that that is an excuse to sin, because it is not. But staying on a holy path each day may be a struggle, but to be worthy we  commit to try, EVERYDAY.

Lord, Help us to believe in the transforming power of the resurrection in our own life.

When we tug on a single thing in nature we find it attached to everything else

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"When we tug on a single thing in nature we find it attached to everything else." ~ John Muir

 John Muir was an American naturalist, and the founder of The Sierra Club and as an activist saved many national treasures. But what does he have to do with my thinking today? So many things.
My thinking today is a mixed bag of conflicting premises that keep coming at me for a reason, and I think it is because I am at a crossroad. I am at a place where my awakening from this mental illness, (Agoraphobia) is trying to find the place it will create the most from.
As I have said in previous posts, there is a place in recovery where one sees that everything is connected. It is on the way up from the darkest place one can get to, in my case the depth of depression. Creativity emerges at this place, and the direction one takes with this creation (in "my" mind) will determine what the creation will be for, or who will benefit from it. The idea that everything is connected is not a new concept by any means but the development of the concept changes with every person, therefore you see my dilemma this day.
For the last few days I have been coming at it from a religious aspect, and I choose to continue in that direction, but the very first conflict in my day came to me as I went to the NAMI blog and saw a comment by a woman who says that her awakening has led her to believe that she is God, and that there is no basis for religion at all because she controls her own life, and I was immediately daunted by her caliber of education.  She is a lawyer, so she has had a good education and is knowledgeable, and I should think of her as a reputable source. But how can I?  My confusion did not stop there, I began to doubt my own beliefs and thoughts, and then suddenly I realized that I was coming from "ego." Thank you God, for pointing that out to me, because had I stayed to try to dissect her comments I would have been lost in trying to compete with her and that comes from "ego," which can totally destroy my own credibility.
Well, naturally as one that believes "we are responsible for our own reality," this whole diatribe sent me through a loop. I have been confused and dazed since reading her post. I at first tried to respond to her post, but could not find a way to speak without judgment, and felt it was not my place to correct her. Yet, she sits in my mind. Her thoughts came from the idea that we are one with God, but to conclude that she is God is so unsettling for me. She in so many words also said that we are in rapture now. I remember being in that place at one time, because mental illness can lead you into a conflict with good and evil, and when you are there, trying to rationalize, is not possible, because it is coming from the disease of the mind; and giving control to the disease leads to this place that locks your thoughts in such a convoluted place. I am praying for this woman tonight, although I cannot recall where she is and my internet history shows no record of her, but I will pray for her nameless as she is to me, and I will pray that others are not lost in her post also. I will also pray that God will show me the necessary tools to share this in a way that helps others not to go to where she is, and that is not to say that I am right and she is wrong, but we are in the middle of a huge message from God right now and the more confusing it becomes the more that will lost by this tumultuous disaster in Japan and fewer will see that it is a sign that God is telling us to be aware. Just a sign, not the return, not the rapture, not the end as he has predicted. I am sad that she believes that this is how she will live from now on. But, of course, I own that, not her.
Anyway, the beginning of my post was sent to me tonight in a post by a friend whose judgment I trust and whose guidance has lifted me from this confusion, and I am filled with gratitude to have such people in my life, Thank you, Dave.

Psalm 28:7 The Lord strengthens and protects me; I trust in him with all my heart. I am rescued and my heart is full of joy; I will sing to him in gratitude.

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

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1 Corinthians 13:7 We all, these days, will tend to want to question what has happened in Japan, what negative things have taken place in our life, but it is not necessary to put ourselves through that. When we are in pain, mourning, depression,and  anxiety we are bringing this on ourselves. "We are responsible for our own reality." We can change anything because "With God all things are possible."
He tells us that he will carry us through all the negative things that happen to us, but do we ALL listen? NO...
What is the expression people use so often...? "What does not break us will make us stronger." Why? Because God puts challenges in front of us, everyday and it is our purpose to overcome them with his guidance. Mourning is a natural thing to do when someone we love is lost to us, but we should remember that they are with God now and we will see them again when He comes. We will be re-united with our lost loved ones, their spirit will rise with their body and we will be whole with them again, in the rapture and Glory of God.
I sat in a Bible class last week and my pastor said to me that the spirit will return to the body and we will all be whole again, My first thought was, OMG...my sister was cremated and her ashes sit on the top shelf of my entertainment center, what have I done? So I asked him, "are you saying that I have disposed of her remains in a way that will stop her from re-uniting with her spirit?" As tears ran down my face, I waited for his answer. He said, I should not worry because Christians will be re-united with their bodies even from dust.  After all,  that is how we come into the world. Those were not his exact words, I am expressing my relief in the thoughts that followed after what he told me. My relief was great and I let out a huge sigh, but I was thinking about my daughter too. My greatest loss was her tiny life, lost to me at 6 months old.
People ask me all the time, how did you go on, how did you get over it. In the past I was able to say, "I don't know, I guess I just pushed through it because I went right on to taking caring of my mother as she spent her last 6 months with a diagnosis of terminal Colon Cancer. Was I just too busy to think about her? Well, I know that is not true because every night I would stay up late enough to give my mother her last dose of Morphine so she (and I ) could sleep through the night without pain.  Hers from the cancer, mine from mourning the loss of my child. I thought a lot and read a lot about death then. My Uncle, thinking that I would understand and accept my mother's and my daughter's death easier if I understood the dying process, had given me books that told me what to expect; and I am grateful that he did that, but did it make the process any easier, No. No because my mother was still going to go through this process and understanding it was part of my acceptance of her dying, but easier, nothing makes the dying process easier for anyone except through their faith. My mother was a faithful Christian through her life and especially during her last days and I knew that she was going to be re-united with those that she lost, including my daughter; but I found humor in the fact that she believed she would be re-united with my father. In her last days she would have vivid conversations with him in the late night before her final dose of medication. She also survived with a barely registering blood pressure for two days, and I believe that she was holding on to be re-united with him on their Anniversary.
Most of my life with my father was filled with abusive alcoholism. He drank, he stewed, and then he blew. It was a daily ritual for my sister's, my mother, and I. We would sit in the kitchen and wait for him to go to bed so we could breath again. Not that we literally held our breath, but we tried not to make any sound that would set him off. The worst part about trying to be quiet or trying to stop anything else, is that the more you try to stop it, the more it comes up. It is true with anything we try to get rid of, the more you try to get rid of it, the more it comes back to you. If I had known then that that is the way the "law of attraction" works, I would have suggested that we think differently about what we were trying to avoid, so something good would have come out of the time we spent waiting for something bad to happen. Funny, right? What a waste of time it was. I often wonder what we could have done, that would have put the abuse at bay, while we accomplished it and these days I have found the answer, it was no secret. I just never realized that we could very well have taken our focus off the fear we were feeling by being quietly creative.  It would have lessened my father's power over us, and given us something to see at the end of each of these experiences.
I do these things now because I know they work, but what a blessing it would have been for all of us together to be doing something quietly creative. I paint, quilt, sketch, and make crafts now, and I do them quietly; and with the express purpose of keeping fear, anxiety, and depression from taking over my mind. Sad that it took me this many years to discover that, but I have and I use it effectively now, not as a manner of keeping my father away, but to keep depression and anxiety from locking my mind in fear and sometimes, terror.
A few years back when my depression and anxiety manifested as Agoraphobia, my mind and my body  were keeping me locked in my home, similar to the way my father, unbeknown to him, kept us locked in the kitchen quietly trying to avoid his wrath. What I discovered about that I will cover tomorrow, but remember:

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 1 Corinthians 13:7

"It's easy to forget that what I feel is not nearly as important as what I know."

Image via Wikipedia" You believe at last, Jesus answered. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33
Jesus prays for all believers:
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one." John 16: 20-22
 Jesus has told ust hat we should not fear the things taking place in the world, because God is with us at all times. He also told us what would come and what we should do about such things.

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." - spoken by Jesus in Matthew 5:4.

We should mourn for those that died in Japan and pray for those that survived that they may have peace dealing with such loss.

I have set my rainbows in the clouds between me and the earth!

GOOGLE
What do we say? Japan is under attack...yes, attack. The whole world is watching and it is time we all paid attention. This is not doomsday, it is a wake up call. God told us to expect things like this, but who is really listening? Are you? I am, and I am taking steps in my life to make sure that my family and I are prepared for whatever is to come because I know that "we are not ALL God's people," YET! He says not everyone will get to be with him. Will you be one of those left behind?
Genesis 9:12-17 (The covenant that God made with Noah and his sons) And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy ALL life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all the living creatures of every kind on the earth." So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."
I don't see doomsday in those verses, do you? What I do see is that God has told us what is NOT to come, but he has also told us what IS to come. There are signs and we must be watchful of the signs and be prepared, as believers, to be with him everlasting.
Pray for Japan that all people there see this as a sign of everlasting hope, not death.  Pray that the survivors find peace after losing so many. Pray that the God's word is heard in Japan, everyday. That's what I plan to do.  How about you?

With God all Things are Possible Good or Bad

I had a very perplexing day yesterday. Everywhere, everyone is talking about the disaster in Japan. Confused by some reactions of how people are saying that we should not pray for them because they are an Atheist country. Really! There are also Christian survivors there that have lost loved ones, and Atheists that have lost loved ones. We should pray that all of them find peace from all that they have lost.  We should also pray that many will see this as a sign of what God told us would come our way. I am not saying this as a doomsday post, I am merely saying we should all at all times be prepared for his coming by accepting Jesus as our Savior so that when our own time comes we are prepared. That is what love is about. Loving all that believe AND do not believe.  It is our purpose to share the word of god with others, but it is EVEN MORE PURPOSEFUL now to empathize and pray for those that have lost so much and so many.  Even more pray with gratitude for all that we have. Being grateful everyday for all that God has given us, and that is EVERYTHING.

Remembering that everything is thought first, think only good thoughts. Praise God with gratitude that we are not the survivors of such a tumultuous disaster, but remembering that we could be at anytime. Are you ready to leave this earth?
The greatest fear that most people have is the "fear of death," but those that have accepted Christ as their savior do not fear death, instead they believe that whatever happens in their life God is always with them. Relieve yourself of the greatest fear, the Fear of death, and realize if that is greatest fear, then "Fear is not a rational thought."This is a thought that I often play in my mind when plagued by Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces.)
My family's cookbook called "Traveling Recipes" is for sale as a pdf file on Etsy, all of the proceeds this from the sales this month are going to Autism Intervention Specialists.
Also try to turn the world BLUE on April 1,2, 2011 for Autism Awareness

EVERYONE NEEDS A GOOD CLEANSING LAUGH

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Life is not easy. God never wanted it to be easy. He puts challenges in front of us so we will pay attention to what he has to give us. What is that you ask? Well, even if you didn't ask, you should know.  He wanted us to know that, no matter what we have done... he gave his son to die and to save us from ALL our sins.  So, no matter what you have done, or what is making you sad or dysfunctional...all you have to do is ask for his forgiveness...with conviction, and he will answer your prayers.
I ran across a video online today and could not resist sharing it with people, because it was so cathartic for me. It made me laugh so hard that I cried...The tears that I cried were from grief, sadness, guilt and so many other emotions that I couldn't even list them all, but it worked.  That is what EVERYTHING is about. Cleansing ourselves from the things that make us so dysfunctional in a world filled with so many things to be GRATEFUL for.  Take responsibility for your part in your life and ask for forgiveness; and if that is not enough watch this video, because I promise you, it will make you laugh until you cry with JOY.