Monthly Archives: October 2021

Oct5

A Meandering Potpourri of Thoughts, or, Becoming More Like Jesus VERY Slowly.

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What shall I write about now? I published a post on Sunday that I really liked, and I haven’t been able to figure out what to write about ever since because my mind has been blank. Usually I can come up with at least some kind of inkling, but not this time. So maybe I’ll just meander a bit until I can come up with a topic.

So this is me meandering…

Things are getting better with Charlotte. She seems to be warming up to me, though it’s in a somewhat oppositional fashion, if that makes any sense. She plays around my feet by clawing them, which hurts like crazy, so I have to tell her to stop. I don’t want to do that, but her claws are so sharp that I can’t stand it if I allow her to keep using them on me.

I haven’t worked on my cross stitch for several days, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I didn’t see McT this week. He and his wife went up north on a sort of mini-vacation. I’m supposed to see him again tomorrow, so maybe that’ll kickstart my cross stitch again.

Above is Charlotte’s current favorite toy. Originally it was a mask that I cut from a tee shirt at the beginning of the quarantine because I didn’t have any other masks. She likes to drag it from room to room.

I’m thinking I should post a progress pic here as well. I haven’t posted an update photo in a very long time, so maybe it’s time to do that. I have made a fair amount of headway on it since my last progress pic, though I’m still working on the same part of the sampler ~ the bottom right corner. It’s just that I’ve moved in a bit from the absolute corner. Of course I have to take a photo of it first, strangely enough. You can’t post a photo if you don‘t have a photo to post.


This is my Pandemic sampler from Long Dog Samplers, WIP #8, and I’m making slow but steady progress. I’m still working on the bottom right corner, but I’m moving towards the bottom left corner slowly but surely. The link for this sampler is, https://www.longdogsampler.com/product/pandemic/

That’s all I can think of at the moment. It took me a VERY long time to figure out how to get the photo of my cross stitch into this post, something like two hours or more. That amount of time seems pretty ridiculous to me, but it took at least that long. Thankfully it finally got done, and it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself, after an immense amount of frustration and praying and silent yelling (my housekeeper is cleaning my apartment at present, so I can’t yell out loud. Harrumph! The things we do for propriety’s sake!)

We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. ~ 2 Corinthians 3:18, The Passion Translation.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%203:17-18&version=TPT

Above is the link to the Bible Gateway website where you can access the verse from The Passion Translation that I used. Becoming more like Jesus is a process. It has to be that way, because doing it all at once would be too painful and difficult. I mean, think how it would be to grow from a baby into an adult in one single day. That would be impossible.

In order for your bones to make that kind of transformation you’d have to add more bone, a LOT more bone, all at once. It might be easier if you broke the bone in half and just added a big segment in between the two broken halves. But then healing would take a long time, and it would be quite painful.

It’s something to think about anyway, and something I might explore further in another post.

Oct2

No Longer In Harry’s World

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Sometimes I get tired of living in this world that the devil is the god of. It’s a world chock-full of gimmicks and lies and tricks, and people who tell those lies, and trick you with those gimmicks.

And I find myself feeling exhausted because I can never let my guard down. I always have to be wary that someone will sneak up behind me with a new deception, except, according to the Bible, there’s nothing new under the sun.

That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. ~ Ecclesiastes 1:9, NKJV.

I like the way the New Living Translation says it,

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. ~ Ecclesiastes 1:9, NLT.

History merely repeats itself. In other words, the devil, the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) can’t create anything new. Only God can do that. So maybe, if I put my trust in God, and keep my focus on Jesus, while listening to the Holy Spirit, then I won’t have to be hypervigilant anymore.

I really like the sound of that!

I really like the sound of that because I’ve spent my entire life being hypervigilant, and it’s exhausting. Throughout my childhood I had to be, because my father (that’s who Harry was ~ he’s dead right now) was incredibly unpredictable. I could never anticipate where he would be next. He might jump out at me from behind a door, or spook me from behind, always with rape and abuse on his mind.

This kind of thing is overwhelming for an adult to handle, much less a small child! It’s no wonder I was hypervigilant!

There was one time when I was about four. I wanted to go into the kitchen to get a glass of milk. The door to the kitchen was a swinging door, and most of the time it was open, but this time Harry was standing in my way. He had this ominous look on his face, and I knew if I tried to go around him, I’d be in big trouble.

There was another way into the kitchen, through Mary’s and my bedroom, onto the back porch, and into the kitchen. But I knew if I tried to go that way Harry would chase me, and I would inevitably lose, because he was bigger than me. So no matter what I did I would get raped and beaten.

In my mind, however, I couldn’t just submit. It felt like I would have been giving in and taking the coward’s way out. I had to run the other direction, regardless of whether that made it worse or not. So I turned and ran towards my bedroom.

Of course, I didn’t get very far, because Harry was bigger than me and could run much faster, but I had to try. I had to TRY!!

He caught up with me somewhere in the middle of the dining room, between the kitchen and the bedroom, and seized my arm, jerking me off my feet, my legs flying. I started to shriek, but he grabbed my face, and covered my mouth so I couldn’t make a sound. Then he stuffed me under his arm and took me into my mother and his bedroom. He threw me down on their bed, and hissed at me that I would regret trying to run from him.

I’ll end my story there, but suffice it to say that, as usual, he raped me and slapped me silly.

As horrific as that event was, it was life as usual for me during those years. But God was there the whole time, keeping me alive and protecting me from the worst of the abuse, and I am so grateful that He was. Additionally, I’ve now come to see that I no longer live in Harry’s world ~ thank God!

It’s occurred to me that Harry’s world and the world of the devil were one and the same. Harry and the devil were best buds, and Harry tried to draft me into Satan’s kingdom, but thankfully God had other plans.

As I’m writing this, I’m all of a sudden realizing that God protected me from that aspect of the abuse in particular. I endured the ritual abuse, but rather than becoming a part of the cult as Harry and Satan hoped, God planted in me an overwhelming hatred for all things evil and satanic that has guarded my heart and mind throughout my life. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that! God is so good, and He’s so incredibly good to me!!

I have given them Your Word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking You to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. ~ John 17:14-16, NLT.

That’s what He did for me ~ He gave me His Word, and kept me safe from the evil one.

Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift! ~ 2 Corinthians 9:15, NKJV.

That’s how I feel right now. I’m so grateful to God for His unfathomable, inexpressible, amazing, marvelous, beautiful, and bountiful gifts to me. There are too many to count, so I think I’ll stop here!

God is so good!