Surprise on the Road.

The other day my husband and I were off on another hiking adventure. This time we were going to hike to "Dorothy Falls"  a beautiful waterfall located in Queen's Canyon on the Glen Eyrie property. We didn't have a lot of time to hike but hoped we would make it to the falls. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, story of your life right?

You are probably wondering where I am going with this, right? Well as always I this blog will be a parable. I think God really likes those. 

We started out on our hike and again this is a path that is traveled, but can only be traveled in the late spring and summer. This path was different from the paths we have taken before, most paths we hike are maintained and easy to identify where the trail is and where it is going, but not this one. This one started out nice, wide and clear of rock at least for a ways it was like that. Then the path became narrow and rocky and hard to follow. As we hiked along we followed the stream up through the canyon, although there were places where the water would just disappear into the rocky bed of the creek and reappear further upstream. We could not figure this one out...but we kept on going. The further into the canyon we hiked the more beautiful, peaceful, and quiet it became, with the exception of the birds chirping here and there and the hum of the hummingbirds. Again we didn't quiet make it to our destinations....the waterfalls and the reservoir up above the falls. When our going up time came to an end we turned around and headed back downstream. Now remember we are hiking in a canyon in the mountains where wildlife is abundant (of all sorts) and this path was full of huge boulders and rocks due to rock slides and the fact it is not well maintained. So as usual on the way down I was just going on my merry way not really thinking about anything but expecting God to speak at some point, but never expecting to hear what I heard.........What did I hear you may ask if it was not God Speaking? 

Well I will tell you........... I heard God Laugh......this was not a chuckle, or a little laugh this was a ROFL a huge roar of laughter, it was almost as if it echoed through the canyon. 

So this is what happened to make God laugh and to inspire to write this blog.....

As we were headed back downstream to the trail head (beginning of the trail), I knew to be aware of my surroundings.....watch for falling rock, rock slides, wild animals and snakes.....Yes I said snakes....Rattle Snakes in particular. Now I was in front just going along minding my own business and kind of paying attention. We were crossing the little stream of water when I went to step from a rock to the bank and there in front of me I saw this thing slither between two big rocks which I was about to step around. It startled me so bad I screamed out sh** without even thinking and of course it echoed through the canyon....First I was to terrified to move and my husband asked me twice what it was and what was wrong before I could answer him. I said a snake, a water moccasin. He went on to inform me there was no such kind of snake in Colorado. I told him yes there is I just saw it.....He said, "Oh it's probably a grass snake it's okay". By this time I had regained my composure and moved onto the bank looking for the snake which I found had slithered out from between the rocks and into the water. My husband had caught up with me and saw it and said it is just a water snake. Now this snake was just afraid of me as I was of him and he was headed in the opposite direction of me. So we watched it swim away and went on down the path. Now I began to realize what had just happened and became extremely embarrassed #1 that I screamed (like a girl) and #2 what I screamed and the fact that echoed through the canyon. Just as I was about to get over my embarrassment and things had quietened down, hubby had taken the lead again, I begin to ponder what had just happened.....then I heard it........... This very loud roar and I realized God was laughing, and I had to laugh out loud. We both had a good laugh over the little snake scaring me into an echoing little girls scream.  After the laughter died down, God spoke to me and this is what he shared with me......
"My Child, you are so funny. That snake would not hurt you, you have power and dominion over him. Just like with Satan you have power and dominion

I walked away with a new understanding, yes the road to God is narrow, step, rocky, and full of surprises, but it is no reason to give up, get scared and run away but keep going for God has given us the strength, the power and the weapons to proceed onward on the path he has called us to walk.

Be Blessed my friends and keep walking that path God has called you to walk and be not afraid for God is with you always. Till next time......

How God Loves and Misses Us!

Toni Reading the Bible

The other day as I took time out for myself, I sat down to write in my journal, something I have not done in a while. I started looking through it and reading some of the entries when I came across this one and God spoke to me telling me although I wrote this in my journal in 2007, it is still true today. I felt the need to share this with you. 

June 14, 2007----"As I was sitting in my new study/parlor room studying my bible and reading my book, I put my feet to the floor bumping my cat Toni. A few minutes later the Lord spoke to me this...............

Your cat is sitting at your feet just as I desire you to sit at mine. Also have you noticed when you are home she follows you everywhere you go and she is always not far from where you are? That is how I am with you. I follow you everywhere you go and I am never far from you. You may be able to leave your cat at home when you go to work or run errands and when you return she is there waiting for you by the door. Therefore I am the same.....when my people leave me behind, I am there waiting patiently by the door for their return, and as Toni delights in your return, so do I delight in the return of my people to me. As long as you invite me to go with you everywhere you go, I will go with you, but only when you don't invite me along do I stay behind and wait for your return."

After I read that and reread that I realized my cat Toni is just like God. They both love being with me and they both are right by my side all the time. I sat there thinking about how much my cat loved me and how she protects me. I call her my security cat because she always goes around the house checking things out, when I get ready for bed, she will make a round through the house before getting in bed with me. When she does get in bed she snuggles up against me and stays there till I wake up. In the mornings when I first wake up she is there watching me and when I open my eyes she jumps us with joy and begins to purr very loudly and will do her best to get under the covers with me or will curl up in my face........now you are probably wandering why am I sharing such intimate details with you about a cat? Right? I said all that to say this.........

As I sat there thinking about the above details and what I had just read, I realized God is exactly the same way. Toni my cat and God love me so much and they love being with me, protecting me, loving me and missing me like crazy when I am not with them. God told me that is the kind of relationship he desires to have with all his children. Unfortunately not all of his children will allow him to have that kind of relationship. God longs for the day when he can watch you sleep and when you wake be right there asking how can he make your day a good day, how can he bless you today, and can he go with you today?

Toni doesn't like leaving the house, she doesn't like going for car rides, and she doesn't like it when I leave the house to run errands or be gone overnight but when I return she is soooo happy to see me. God is the same way with us. He enjoys being with us all the time, we should not leave him behind. We should be taking him with us everywhere we go. Don't leave God behind, don't turn your back on him. If you have then know he is waiting patiently for your return and all of Heaven will rejoice with him when you run back to him. He will receive you with open arms, a loving heart, a huge smile, a big hug and much rejoicing. 

The New Fashion is the "Heavenly Look"

The other day my daughter and I were driving down this street and passed this house, as you can see it is not in the best shape and needs a lot of work. I said, "Oh look there is my dream home." My daughter said, "EWWWWW!!!!!! That house is ugly I wouldn't want it." I said, "but it can be fixed up to be very beautiful."God immediately started to speaking to me and this is what he said.......

"When a sinner comes to me and asks for forgiveness for the first time and asks me to move into their house/heart this what it looks like. I (the Holy Spirit) moves in and begin to clean it up, fix all the brokenness and make it all nice and beautiful. I don't care what the person looks like inside or out. I can fix all the problems and when I am completely done that old broken, falling down house with the thorns growing all over and around it ia nice beautiful castle."

So God doesn't care what we look like when we come to him in our brokenness as long as we give ourselves to him totally. He knows the outcome, he knows what we can look like, who we can be and what we can do through him. He knows he can make us beautiful. For those of you who are new christians, don't misunderstand me. He will not change our outward appearance but will change our inward appearance. There will be a big enough of a change that what changes on the inside will shine through to the outside but he is not going to change us from being overweight to being a supermodel, but he will change our attitudes about ourseleves and how we feel about ourselves. See it doesn't matter what is on the outside (the appearance the world sees) but what is on the inside. It's your heart he is after.

Allow me to share some more insight here on this subject of "Heavenly Look" the new Fashion. First of all our bodies will return to dust when we die. Second what is left is our soul/spirit and that is what God is after and wants to clean up and give a Heavenly Look to. We should not care what the world thinks of us. We were not made for man's gratification but God's. Unfortunately society has raised to think all women who are not supermodel material are less than perfect. We should not compare ourselves to those supermodels we see on the magazine covers for their looks to shall fade away. God did NOT make us to be supermodels, he made us to be heavenly angels, to praise his name, dance before him and rejoice. The Devil tries to convince us we must look and dress a certain way and if we don't look like the supermodels then we are not good enough for anyone or good enough to be anything. That is a lie! God made us to look like who we are and we should STOP allowing the Devil/The World to dictate to us how we should look, it affects our spirits. God said it doesn't matter what we look like and that we should NOT get caught up in the worldly appearance. We are beautiful in God's eyes.

This is the new fashion......"The Heavenly Look".

Oh, how changed a man is he now!

Oh, how changed a man is he now!

Blind Leading the Blind

Have you asked questions of man but never seem to get answers. God doesn't want man giving the answers, God wants us to ask him and allow him to give the answers. God says, it is like the blind leading the blind, they are always going to fall down and break something. We are not to depend on each other for answers but depend on God for those answers. God gave us the right to make choices but he didn't give us the right to give the answers. We must seek him for the answers. When we are faced with a decision the first thing we do is call someone very close to us and ask them for their opinion or to help us make a decision. How often do we seek out God first for the right answer?
All the time?
Some of the time?
almost always?
almost never?
Never?

I am sure most of us would admit it the answer is almost never. Am I right?
Unfortunately that is the wrong answer. The right answer is: all the time.
If we do not seek God ALL THE TIME for the answers then at some point we will fall, and when we do we find ourselves sitting crying in our boots wondering why we fell. Of course God is always there to pick us up by our boot straps, dust us off and give us the right answer.
So moral of this is don't let the blind lead you, let God lead you.

The Narrow, Winding, Steep Path

A couple of weeks back my husband and I set off on an afternoon hike looking for a waterfall. The hike started out on an old abandoned rd that once was a train passage then gave way to cars but now closed to motor vehicles as 3 of the tunnels through the mountain side are unsafe and parts of them caved in. The hike to the waterfall trail head was about 2 miles. It was a nice hike, several hikers and a few bicyclist were on the road. It was smooth, pretty views, wide, easy to hike. When we reached the trail head just on the other side of tunnel 3 (one of the first caved in tunnels) the sign read St. Mary's Waterfall 1.5 miles. We started up the trail and for a while it was a nice easy incline, not to steep, easy to navigate, could almost walk side by side, as we got closer to the waterfall the trail became more steep more difficult to navigate and the weather changed on us. Clouds moved in, and the breeze picked up. We hiked till it began to sprinkle. We chose to keep going for a while, but then realized the clouds didn't look so friendly so we turned around and headed back for shelter by this time it was raining on us and halfway down the path it hailed on us. Although the storm passed so did the time and we headed back to the main road and our vehicle.

You are probably wandering okay what is the moral of the story here and why are you telling this? Right? Well there is a moral to the story a lesson to be learned by all, one God shared with me. Before I begin I want to say one thing.....I did NOT want to turn back, I wanted to continue on till we reached the waterfall but I also knew I had to make a tough choice as to go on and face any challenges (such as the weather getting worse and getting stuck on the side of the mountain) or turn around and go back and so we reluctantly chose to turn around and go back. It was with a saddened heart we made it back to our vehicle...1. because the weather blew over and 2 I didn't make it to my destination......again a story and lesson behind our decision.


As I was walking up the trail, it became much harder to maneuver. Meaning it was a steeper incline, the altitude was changing, more rocks to step on,over and around. Also the clouds were blowing in and getting darker. However the scenery was beautiful. The path followed a nice running creek and you could tell it had been deeper. As I climbed the trail We stopped often and looked at this most smallest things, it was the little things that caught the eye and the beauty. Even though we had to really watch the trail as we hiked we were able to see the beauty around us and God began to speak to me concerning this. He said, "My people start on their journey on the road, like Gold Camp Road, wide full of people with beautiful views and the path is easy to walk. Then comes a time in their life when I want them to go a different direction and take the path that not everyone takes. Some refuse to take the steeper narrower path and chose to keep going along the wide easy path, then there are those that take the narrow, steep winding path but complain about the difficulty of the path or how long it will take them to arrive and they never see the beauty along the way, they never see what I want to show them on this path. Then there are the handful like you that sees the beauty and enjoys what I have made....the lessons I want them to learn. Those are the ones who make it to the top....although there are times when I put objects in front of them and they have to chose whether to continue on the path or turn around and go back. You my child have chosen to continue on the path no matter the cost. There are some who decide my path is too hard and will turn and go back and continue on the easy path and never again try a more difficult route and will not regret turning back. You my child have passed the test. You continued on regardless." As fought with myself over turning back, I was so upset with myself for choosing to turn back I cried out to God to forgive me for not finishing the path and reaching the ultimate destination but made a vow I would return in a few days and start out early and I would make it to my destination, so as we started back down the path, me being upset with myself, heard God begin to speak to me again. This is what he told me about my decision to turn back. "My child it is okay to turn back, you have cried out to me and told me, God I am afraid to continue on I have a family to tend to at home and I don't want to worry them and get stuck up here on the side of a mountain past dark. I heard your cries and I put the storm in your path for two reasons, one is to tell you not everyone will continue on in through the storm, they will turn around and run the other direction and two is to show you it is okay to make choices but to pray about those choices and to cry out to me and ask me for answers. You my child cried out to me and told me your fears and I know your heart and I saw the desire and determination and that is what I wanted most from you on this day. So you didn't make it to your destination today, it was not meant for you to make it to your destination today. I wanted to you to see you have the desire and the determination to go all the way to meet me. Only the chosen have that desire and determination. Remember many are called but few are chosen."

After hearing these words from God and braving hugging a huge Christmas tree waiting for the hail to stop so we could continue on back down the path I felt better and on my way down I noticed things I didn't notice on the way up, and the beauty of the path. God spoke to me one more thing as I reached the bottom of the trail and was turning back onto that main old dirt road....and that was "those who turn around and go back, RUN!!!!, they never stop and enjoy the beauty on the way down either, they are more focused on getting back to their comfort zone, their place of safety, but the chosen will always see the lesson that I am teaching them and they will pass the test. My child you have passed your test for the day."

I told my husband I enjoyed the hike very much. By the time we got home, my back and hip hurt and it was very difficult to walk but I didn't care, I had heard from my God and seen his marvelous works and I would and will tackle that path again and next time (God Willing)I will make it to my destination the beautiful St. Mary's Waterfall.

"Is 'Texting, Tweeting, Facebooking, Instant Messaging,etc Enough?"

Communication today has become less and less personal. Some call the internet the information highway. But where is this highway leading us? To Heaven? To Hell? Depends on who you ask. Our lives have become so complicated and so full of short text messages and made up symbols such as BFF, LOL, ROFL, Etc, that our teens don't know how to effectively communicate; nor do we as parents. Communication is an interchange of thoughts, ideas and/or opinions. The synonym for communication is communion which means intimate fellowship. This intimate fellowship is our prayer time, our time alone with God.
How can we teach others about God and how to pray #1 when we can't effectively communicate because we use symbols such as the BFF, LOL, ROFL, sumthn, n, cuz, etc. #2 when we don't spend time in that intimate fellowship with him.

Let us step back in time to the near beginning. God spoke to moses (that intimate fellowship) through a burning bush, and then again alone on the mount where he gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Then King David spent a lot of time in Worship/Praise and Prayer with God (which helped make him a great leader) although he had prophets who brought messages from God to him, King David still found time each day to (most of his life)to have that intimate fellowship with God. Jesus when he walked on earth he found time to have that intimate fellowship with God his father....alone. The Disciples had the Holy Spirit to help guide them but they too had that intimate fellowship not only with Jesus when he was alive on earth but also with him after he returned to Heaven. Can you imagine would it would have been like if back during all those times if they had cellphones, computers, text messaging, instant messaging, twitter, etc. We probably wouldn't have the bible to read today and the verses to share with one another. Would they have been to busy to have that intimate fellowship with God?

In this day age of all the technology we have available to us we have lost that intimate fellowship with God and we do not have the equipment to go out and fight the spiritual battle that wages on. We think having the verses at our fingertips on the computer is enough. We think we can just send out daily messages/bible verses/words of encouragement to our friends and followers and that will be enough to get them through whatever they may be going through. But is not enough, we are not teaching them how to communicate effectively, how to have that intimate relationship with God. Don't get me wrong the messages and verses, etc are good, but we must go above and beyond that, WE NEED; WE MUST HAVE, that intimate fellowship with God, that is how we recharge and continue on in our faith and it is how we keep from getting burned out for Christ. If we do not communicate, communion, pray, have the intimate alone fellowship with God on a daily basis how can we go out and reach the lost and the hurting and how can we lead the nations?

Again, I ask: "Is texting, instant messaging, Facebooking, MySpace, Tweeting, Blogging, etc Enough?