The home where I was caregiving was in the eye of this storm for about ten minutes, and in the eyewall for many hours. After the storm passed, we had a ten-day power outage, much destruction around us, and clean-up. 

We also had my mom’s landlady in a hospital bed in the living room. She had returned home from a Rehab facility six days before the hurricane arrived. She now had a colostomy bag, catheter, abscess drain, bed sore wound, and an antibiotic-resistant, “highly infectious” UTI. I had my hands full.

In the two years since then, I gained new nursing skills (Home Health nurses said, “you’re as good as an LPN” - licensed professional nurse). I had Property Management, Banking, Accounting, Cooking and Bottle Washer duties…it was challenging and also rewarding, to be entrusted with serving the lives of those I love.

I was also extremely housebound, but there were big blessings and learning opportunities amid the many details of very repetitive nursing and caregiving work: 

• singing weekly in a great choir

• attending several beautiful musical concerts and organizing one, too

• painting several commissions and pet portraits 

• learning about ice crystallography

• Biblical water research and presenting for an international masterclass event;

• understanding more about the central nervous system 

• helping edit a book

• taking a short vacation after 21 months without one full day “off”

• meeting new friends

• an awareness that God was providing for me

I felt in the center of our Father’s will. He had sent me to care for a gracious woman who was His faithful servant, a widow with no children, in her last days of life on earth.

The biggest half of my caregiving responsibilities ended in November 2023, with this elderly woman’s Home-going (physical death). She had been our family’s dear, wise and kind friend. After her funeral, I came into a season of recovering my own health. 

I’ve now moved twice since April, and am thankful for God’s healing hand in my life. 

When constant critical-nursing ended and my cortisol levels began to decrease, daily life felt super boring. Adrenaline can be addictive. Yet my body really needs this kind of slowdown to repair itself from the extreme stress and broken sleep patterns experienced over the last few years.

Walking almost 200 miles since early April, I had time alone for much reflection, considering decisions made in life which led me again to a lowly state. 

I’ve felt a bit lost, uprooted yet again. As I seek new direction and purpose, I sense my life has significantly changed. I see differently now, in more ways than one.

On another level, I’ve been considering what sacrificial Love really is…I didn’t plan to become a martyr by working myself nearly to death. This is a topic for another day…

Various creative projects are at hand, while desiring more clarity and vision for the future. In time, I trust a new season will dawn, and will bring with it “new life”.

Recently I've seen from the perspective that nearly all of my most significant times of service and impact in life (from my earthly perspective, anyway) have occurred because I made a voluntary investment of time, living perhaps an uncomfortable life, outside the more culturally-accepted 9-5 paid-workplace. 

Some may see this investment as irresponsible…for this work has consequently often caused me to need the help of others. I am not usually independent, I am connected, through my own needs, to others, even as I give myself, freely.

And I remember my seven years of teaching in front of small and large audiences of children and adults - sharing messages of good character. While what was shared probably encouraged many, I personally felt extremely blank because I had very limited personal relationships with those in the audience…

This present blog is about the summer of 2020, a time when I did have many fulfilling connections and long conversations with personal friends, one-on-one, by phone, and face-to-face. I have illustrated it with photographs I took during that year of 2020.

I was dependent that summer on my family and friends to survive, financially. Until that year of lockdowns, I had never before been to a Food Bank in order to eat fresh produce. That summer, I could not purchase everything I needed, and didn’t have a place to grow it myself. Having so many basic needs was humbling. 

But God was using my low position in life, to reach someone who felt similarly. 

Amid my basic needs and the uncertainty about the future, Christ was made strong, using what I still had - Faith. And I was rich in time! He worked in His mysterious ways, to perform wonders, and transform a life. 

I am merely His channel, needing a heart that truly cares about others, and the willingness to be available to give myself, time and attention, so others feel His Love for them.

_________________

A couple months ago, I called my friend and now spiritual brother, Noah, to see how he was doing. He gave me a very positive report, after over a year without contact between us. It was a huge encouragement to me, to hear how his life has shifted and he’s continued growing in grace, by grace!

Noah has already read this blog and given me permission to tell part of his life story. And I share, hoping that others will likewise believe their own life, or that of a loved one, can also transform and improve, when the time is right.

I will speak from my own perspective, for I really don’t know all that was going through Noah’s mind and spirit…I just know he asked for my friendship, and this turned into a positive story!

_________________

I had arrived home in Vermont from an extended trip to NYC in late February of 2020 on a bus. I had been offered an empty apartment in Queens, NY, free for eleven days, but when I asked God about it in prayer, I heard, “GO HOME”.

NYC began using bleach in their Metro system one week after I left the city! I was extremely glad to have missed this chemical smell. 

A couple weeks into March, my brother came to visit me, kindly lending me his extra Android tablet because Vermont was “locking-down”…and he felt I needed better internet access. 

My brother also gave me strict instructions not to use more than a certain amount of his cell-phone data each month on his tablet.

For two years, I had seen my email once a week at the local library, often biking three miles each way to get there. I actually enjoyed this lack of distraction, for it enhanced my focus on creative work. But being able to again connect daily with “the world” felt comforting during this unusual time in history. 

I had already purchased several Megabus tickets over the next six months, planning to return to NYC, but these tickets were all cancaled by the bus company...

My brother’s tablet enabled me to hear Calum Graham’s beautiful instrumental guitar concerts that Spring. Calum was in a similar boat to most artists and musicians in 2020, “pivoting” to make a living after an enormous three-month European concert tour had to be canceled.

Calum’s sublime and healing music was a great encouragement that Spring! Calum revived my old dream of becoming a better guitarist. I was certain I could play better, and leave behind the “rut” of just playing what I already had practiced many times. I decided to try again to learn to play up the fretboard of my guitar. I began studying guitar music online, in addition to practicing a lot more, and began composing my own classical pieces.

Noah first saw me outside the local Library using their WiFi. He passed by on the sidewalk, seeing me crunched underneath a small umbrella during a downpour, with the Library’s small doorway entry roof overhead. I was using earbuds, trying hard to block out the sound of a heavy Spring rain, while keeping my brother’s tablet dry. I was happily listening to one of Calum’s gorgeous instrumental guitar concerts. I remember how Noah stared at me as he walked by the Library gate in the rain. A strange sight!

The next Sunday, mid-June I think, I biked to the Library again, planning to sing hymns with my NYC church congregation and listen to a sermon. Our town Library was still streaming Wifi for the public during the lockdowns, while its doors were closed. 

As I attempted to connect to Wifi, a man I didn’t recognize sitting in a chair on the lawn spoke, asking if he could come up on the Library deck and speak with me. “Sure,” I said, putting down the tablet. 

A five-hour conversation ensued. I didn’t attend church online that day. Noah told me a lot about his life and how he had come to be living in town…

I listened, asked questions, and briefly shared how I came to be in town, too.

____________

When I had first moved to the area, three years earlier, I was in a state of shock. My sudden forced move, from an area I loved, was a “result” of my going into the attic to kill three wasps. 

I had previously saved my landlord’s house from frozen plumbing when his oil tank ran dry the previous Winter; and then I had waded through over a foot of Spring flood water in the cellar - risking electrocution - to turn on their sump pump, saving their furnace from being covered by flood water. 

My landlord now felt that my trip into the attic on a ladder was a “liability” to him, because of my eyesight. I explained to him I was very sensitive to toxic chemicals, like pesticides. He promptly canceled the remainder of my second six-month lease, and gave me thirty days to move out. 

He and his wife had then changed their mind and asked me to re-consider renting again, but the house was under construction, my big studio window had been removed, there was fine dust from sheetrock floating in the air, and I saw “the handwriting on the wall”. I needed to move on, again. 

I had left my loved elderly choir members and old hymns behind, and now, living in a completely new area, gone to a local church. Their music was completely different from the symphonic beauty played where I had previously attended, and I was appalled by the sound of it. 

Suddenly, I had to really accept the move mentally, and feel I was again a stranger, and uncomfortably so. 

I shared my strong dislike for the music with a woman who came kindly to greet me. She turned out to be not only a church Elder, but the wife of the music director…! Not a good person to complain to…

The Pastor and Assistant Pastor were blocking the entryway when I returned to attend to hear a special speaker a couple weeks later, and after this service, I was asked to enter their office, falsely accused of “trying to pull people away” (people were coming up to me, to greet me) and subsequently questioned. I told these two men I had complained about their “music” and would leave and never return if they didn’t want me there. These men said they felt this would be best. 

I left, feeling misunderstood and rejected, and went for a five-mile walk. “Please forgive me, Father, for complaining about their music,” I prayed… “I sent you there to tell them that”, came a surprising reply…! 

I had never been kicked out of a church congregation in my life (I wasn’t usually complaining, either), and decided I’d just accept this closed door.

Over my lifetime I had experienced many other types of rejection, but this was communal and it hurt.

Due to this happening, I could understand Noah’s loneliness, rejection and sorrow, although our situations were different.

_______________

I heard about how Noah had been born out-of-wedlock to a 17-yr-old young woman. His mother’s mother, Noah’s grandmother, had given her daughter up for adoption when she was born, so Noah’s fatherlessness spanned two generations.

Noah shared a little bit about his struggles. He was very lonely. He had had a history of stealing, and people in town had slammed their door in his face rather than let him inside to see their possessions. He had a broken relationship with his mother, no contact with his absent dad, and no real friends. 

Noah had over-dosed on heroin five years earlier and almost died. He had blacked-out, and woken up to find he’d fallen down a set of stairs. It was a miracle he had not died this time, he said. He realized there must be a reason why he was here, alive. And that there must be a God protecting him!

I was impressed to hear he had managed to kick this addiction, after miraculously surviving his near-death over-dose black-out. I also heard that he was working full-time. These were important signs that he was attempting to take more responsibility and make more positive decisions in his life.

He showed me his vegetable garden, and the pigs he was raising for meat. He also shared how he had started his own business, building fences, in his spare time. He was very diligently working, keeping his hands really busy with good things!

Noah said (gist), “I’m a Buddhist, but Buddhists don’t really believe in the existence of God, and I do believe in the existence of God”. 

Noah asked me, after several hours of talking, if I would be willing to read through the New Testament with him. “I’ve asked three people already, and they have all turned me down,” he explained.

My mouth opened and I said, “Yes.” 

As I biked three miles home that afternoon, I wondered how this was going to work out. I had just agreed to read the Bible with a complete stranger…

Noah was working full-time but didn’t have his own car. He would come into town on the commuter bus around 5:40 PM or so, and on sunny days, we would arrange so I would be waiting in the wooden Adirondack chairs in front of the Library, where we had first met. We read as much as we could, three or four afternoons each week, through June, starting in the book of Matthew. 

Noah always did the reading, aloud. I enjoyed listening, sitting in sunshine while playing with my weighted (silent) tuning forks. Every so often I interrupted him, emphasizing something he had just read which I felt was important to explain further, to be better understood.

My family was fully aware of my Bible-reading, from a distance, and several other people knew too, including the woman from whom I rented a room.

It was important to me not to cause more rumors, meeting a man behind closed doors. I had explained to Noah about my long-standing commitments which prohibited any sort of dating relationship, and he both respected and admired this [Noah added this word, “admire”, when he proof-read this blog for me].

I would almost always get my work at home done in the morning, then bike to town an hour early, mainly to be able to listen to Calum Graham's beautiful YouTube music and his JamPlay online guitar course. Listening to his music and learning from his deep creativity and intricate understanding of beauty became a huge joy to me that summer! I felt God’s Love, Peace and Joy in my heart when I listened to his music, and I feel these positive emotions must have been felt by Noah, too…

July arrived, and with it came some strong resistance and persecution to what was going on in the spiritual realm. 

The woman I rented from had planned to celebrate a family occasion out-of-state one weekend, leaving her six dogs in the care of family members. 

Normally, I would be the one dog-sitting for her, but she had asked me to move due to fears I would “give her a virus”, and had previously arranged for her own daughter to come take care of her dogs. She thought I would have moved by then, but I had not found another place to rent.

I had purchased another online guitar course through Jonathan Boyd, of Breakthrough Guitar for one month - $37 was all I could afford - and I was trying to take advantage of my remaining time that Sunday afternoon to study guitar online. 

The dog-sitters had stayed overnight, and when I arrived home from my guitar fretboard studies I was immediately questioned. “Is Noah ______ the man you are reading the Bible with?” “Yes,” I replied.

I was shocked by their response. They said they knew of him through a “friend”, and had seen him come out of a grocery store drunk; they told me I should cut off all communication with him, block him on Facebook and my phone, and never talk with him again…

“He is unrehabilitatable, a rapist, violent and very dangerous,” they said to me…

“We are going to buy our mother a hand-gun in case he breaks in here.”

Now, I had gone in and out of NYC by bus for years, at least eight or nine times over the past two years, never having a problem with thugs, strangers, homeless or anyone. I thought I had a decent intuition when it comes to a “dangerous” character….but their words scared me and I questioned myself.

Noah did not strike me as a dangerous man. He was very lonely and broken-hearted. Most people who have no friends have a reason to be drinking every weekend…

“Noah is trying to stay on my good side,” I explained, 

“Why would he come here to break in and harm me, or your mother?”

I went upstairs to my room, opened a window to gain cell reception, and immediately called my brother’s Pastor, a man who had dropped both his alcoholism and marijuana habit the day he became a Christian, many years earlier. 

“Pastor Paul, I need your advice,” I told him, and explained the situation. “Do you think completely rejecting Noah, and stopping reading the Bible with him is best?” 

“You don’t need my advice,” Pastor Paul responded, you need God’s viewpoint.” He told me that cutting Noah off could make the situation FAR worse. I agreed. We prayed together, and I got off the phone.

I then asked God one question. “Father, should I stop reading the Bible with Noah?”

His answer came clearly and concisely, “NO.”

My landlady arrived home from her trip and was a complete wreck, emotionally. Her family had called and told her about Noah. She was frightened badly. She told me I needed to leave her home IMMEDIATELY. 

I began packing and moving boxes to the garage, to show her I’d heard her.

I explained that her family members had been smoking pot heavily while she was away, the entire house still reeked of smoke, and they were probably not thinking too clearly, reacting in fear…and perhaps this bad report about Noah was a projection?

She came to her senses and asked if I had a place to go that night. When I said, “No,” she then said I could stay one more night…

In the morning she had completely calmed down. She realized I was probably right, the fears her family had created were not necessarily true.

“If you continue reading with Noah, just don’t tell me about it,” she said.

I agreed.

But I also called my Bible Study leaders and asked them to pray. I would email my family and several praying people every time I next went to read the Bible with Noah. This prayer covering was a large part of the freedom I felt to just be myself.

A concerned acquaintance also called me from NYC, urging me to stop reading with Noah, saying she would be afraid to associate with someone with his background. I responded that she was not called to the same thing that I was…again, this was fear, disguised as concern, talking.

I didn’t tell Noah about any of this negativity at the time – he only learned of it a few months ago!

We continued on, quietly reading the Bible together in the sunshine, in front of the townspeople and church folk who had rejected Noah’s presence.

One afternoon, Noah got to Luke 8:21 (it may have been Mark 3:31-35, but this truth about family is recorded in three Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke), “My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it” and tears streamed down his face…[and again while reading this, says Noah, in 2024]

 “Do you want to stop and pray about this?” I asked him. “No,” Noah replied. Taking the tissue I offered, he put his dark sunglasses on, and continued to read. 

“You see, you do have a family, a spiritual one,” I encouraged him. He saw this, too, clearly, and received it with joy!

We usually read through 5-6 chapters in the time we had, if I remember correctly. I had to leave to bike home before darkness descended. The main road was a busy commuting route and was dangerous. During rush hour, I would take the back dirt road, which was safer, but added a mile to the bike ride.

Noah’s 34^th birthday was in July of that year, and my mother had sent him a Bible, in which she inscribed his name in the cover-leaf. He was delighted by this gift!

Each time we finished reading, I would pray for Noah, bless him and give him a big bear-hug. I considered Noah my brother in Christ. I was his sister.

Somewhere in August, Noah went silent, and I knew something was up. He finally called, telling me he’d “met someone.” 

That someone turned out to be an intelligent young woman who is now his wife. 

Noah’s positive influence led to a life being changed for the better. She, too, had had a background of falling into drug abuse…

“You helped me, so I’m passing it on by helping her,” Noah explained to me.

I moved to my sister’s home on October 1^st, and then Noah and I read the Bible together only once more.

We had gotten through the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and half of the book of Job. 

Because of Noahs’s full-time work at a University, he was able to begin taking classes there, free of charge. 

Noah called me in January, to tell me he’d gotten a 3.67 grade-point average in his first semester of College. He had begun studying a double-major of Philosophy and Religion.

He said, “Something strange has happened. I haven’t had the desire to drink alcohol in five months! And that hasn’t happened since I was twelve years old!”

We had never discussed alcoholism. I knew people had seen him drunk on weekends, but we never discussed this.

I am not opposed to drinking in moderation, nor did I feel I was Noah’s counselor or mother. He had asked me to read the Bible with him, and I was keeping to my lane.

Another significant part of Noah’s healing was giving Noah two Biofield Tuning sessions. Once just before I moved, and again after I moved, Noah agreed for me to give him an hour-long biofield tuning session. The 174 hertz tuning fork sang loudly of anxiety, five-six feet off his left shoulder – a place which stores inherited emotions of sadness, grief and loss. I explained to Noah that his mother, and grandmother, were probably very scared about having a child out-of-wedlock, yet they chose to protect his life.

Noah clearly had a broken heart and was dealing with early childhood trauma and the weight of much generational grief and loss.

In January, 2021, Noah told me by phone that he had reconciled with his mother, investing time seeing her, and then she had found and reconciled with her own birth-mother! He had been able to meet his grandmother! “I finally know where my blue eyes and body build come from,” he told me joyfully!

In looking back, my family and I had unconsciously given Noah all Five of the Love Languages:

• Quality Time (meeting to read for hours over several months, and prayer)

• Words of Praise

• Gifts (my mom’s Bible on his birthday)

• Touch (a bear-hug)

• Acts of Service (Biking six-seven miles each time I read with him)

Agape LOVE is extremely powerful !

And many kind people were praying for us!

Then my life changed drastically in December 2021, when my mother blacked-out and fell hard on a tile floor in Florida. I went almost immediately to help her, and wound up staying for over two years, both because of the severe injury and because her landlady was critically ill…

Noah’s life continued in Vermont. He applied for and then was hired in a better position at a different College, moved, and went through a major flood in June 2023. He told me recently that the river in Johnson, Vermont rose and overflowed its banks, but that the water stopped rising in front of his apartment building. “They were loading the rescue boats on my front lawn.” God protected him and his family!

He shared how he is presently taking more College courses…and is the first person on the facilities staff to ever be both housed and educated at the College. He has a 4.0 grade-point average at present!

He is providing as a husband and step-dad to two young children. His life is not easy, but he is committed to becoming a better man, and he now knows the Holy Spirit’s care!

Noah’s life transformed for good as he diligently pursued and discovered the real truth about his spiritual family, worldwide, from God’s Word. 

He had sought this understanding with his whole heart.

I think back and realize how the vast majority of blessings in my own life have come through my being Available to say, “Yes” at the right time.

Had I been focused on making money in 2020, or had a 9-5 work position which would have helped my financial situation…there would have been little available time to invest in Noah’s life.

Noah sent me this email a few weeks ago;

Elise I got an A in my theology class!!!!

I must have gotten full credit on my final project, I don’t technically know for sure but I calculated the totals I did have grades for and added a perfect score for the final which came out to 95.5. I’m so encouraged, I worked so hard all semester and I finished with a 4.0 GPA at the 11th ranking liberal arts colleges in the country and paid $100 in tuition. My books cost more than my tuition. Praise God!!!

I’m so happy you’ve moved to a nicer place and I LOVED your poem. I’ve printed it out and I’m going to use it as a bookmark in the Bible you so graciously gifted to me. The Word changed my life and we shared it together, openly for the whole community to see. A community that shunned me when I sought repentance for the sins I committed against it and that same community that warned you to stay away from me, that you were putting yourself in danger when in fact you put your hands in the Lord and with his Love you brought me into the true house of the Lord where I found comfort and took rest. The Word was spoken, heard, and felt, God was with us then as he is now.

I’ve come so far from the things people warned you about, because you shared with me what was the most special to you, in open defiance of peoples attitudes and opinions. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake”.

The time that’s right for you to travel to Vermont will present itself and when it does, we’ll know. For now, my thoughts and prayers are with you. I connected so much with your poem, right now I feel like the dunghill with mansions all around living in _______ like my being here upsets the order of things. I can’t wait for you to visit. He has a plan.

He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he also do and greater works than these shall he do.

Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.

With Love,

Noah

The point behind my sharing this personal email, with Noah’s permission, is to show how his entire focus and purpose in life has drastically changed and improved. We each recognize that God’s commendation is much more valuable than man’s…but in taking college courses in his area of interest and seriously studying, Noah seems far more productive to our world than in his previous life, getting into trouble with others.

I am super-aware that many completely reject the veracity of the Bible today, or struggle to believe its relevance. 

I heard an Indigenous speaker recently, whom I respect greatly, who said that his people were "told" white men would bring a book with them which would "separate" them from the Creator. I do recognize a written word differs from the spoken word. 

Creation is a type of "book", too, and incredibly important to "read" and study. Nature is the handiwork of a living God, it's intricate beauty reveals His character and personality. 

My still growing love for the God of the Bible came as a result of not having had a dad for much of my life. I desired a Father and needed wisdom, and the Holy Spirit used the scriptures in my life as I meditated upon them, eating them, digesting them, asking questions about them in my heart. 

Many have experienced spiritual and/or emotional abuse, and Pharisaical treatment from those who lead or attend the institutional “church”. I am among this wounded number, however, there are no perfect people or gatherings! Discernment is needed. We were made to live and heal in community. People need each other!

Some struggle to forgive and trust that a loving Father exists in the Spirit-world; One whose perfect Love differs from the false doctrines, judgment, hypocritical and fearful actions of flawed men and women.

I know Christ is coming back for His Bride, the Body of Christ, which lives by faith, not a corporate membership or institution. 

But Noah’s life is a testament to the transforming power of the simple good news - that Y’shua, Emmanuel, or “God with us” and the Holy Spirit are alive and well!

Noah gave me purpose and encouragement that Summer of 2020…

When I would moan about my financial poverty, Noah once said, “You do realize that people who have Spiritual Riches don’t usually have Financial Wealth, right?” Wow, those words really encouraged me! And I was reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s, Kim - the spiritually-minded would go about with a proffered bowl, offering wisdom in exchange for food.

Noah accepted me for who I was! He just needed a helping hand, someone to say, “I’ve been down and out, too, you can do this with God’s help.”

I believe, if God tarries, that by His Grace, Noah will make a positive difference in the world today. So many struggle with what he has lived through – fatherlessness, broken relationships, feeling rejected and unloved, opioid and other drug addictions, excessive alcohol consumption, and hurting others because of being victimized…

There is more to the story which I don’t feel able to share, but Noah was falsely accused and looked down upon. People who slandered him and damaged his reputation are now being held accountable for seriously hurtful crimes. 

But no crime is different than another. We all fall by one link of the chain. And no one can say they are without fault or better than another!

It’s incredibly important to listen for our Father’s voice when discerning the character of someone who is brought into your life! 

I wasn’t looking for a new friend that day in 2020. But our Father had plans for those Summer days. He was calling a Prodigal Son Home to His loving embrace!

Glory to the Living God! May His Name be praised!

So many hurting folks need compassion! I need it, too.

May we accept with gratitude all the abundant blessings we are each given in this life and share them with those in need. No matter our economic station or other status, people are made in God’s image and are worthy of being Loved. 

Even when going through hard times of change, need, death of our cherished dreams, death of loved ones, or even outward and inward death of our very “selves”, we each have the option of seeking and finding comfort, direction and claiming Good Hope because of Christ Jesus, who lives and intercedes for us in the unseen realm.

Our Father has shown us His power throughout all of Creation’s beauty, and His Word is written on our hearts.

What crossroads are you presently facing in life?

If this last four years of your life was a chapter, what is the chapter about?

What positive gift in your life can you focus on and be grateful for today?

I remain your beauty and truth-loving friend, 

committed to emotional healing in my own life,

Elise

The Poem to which Noah refers in his email to me, which I wrote in May 2024. 

A few short days after openly accepting where I was then housed, 

deliverance came!:

“Father, what are You doing in my life?”

I ask with some dismay

“I’m making you into Nothing,

You will be more usable this way”

Breaking, molding, baking;

Pruning, trimming, shaping,

This lonely path of change goes on

Perpetually on

What is there to Hope for?

Where am I to go?

Is this trial unending?

Are You really True?

Sitting in a dunghill

Poor and needy there

Is this a metaphor for my existence?

Why should I even care?

I can see the lives of others

I can hear their joyful call

But there is no way to join them

My path is far from comfortable

A ball of clay, No thing

Unto honor would I be

But no seeming control is had

Of what is future-planned for me

Worn and weary, bleak and blue

No one to lean on, no one, but You

Stopping trying, receiving Grace

In the solitude, I sense Your embrace

As I live in degradation

stark poverty abounds

In a veritable dunghill

with mansions all around.

~ Night Poetry, May, 2024

“For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”

 ~ I Corinthians 1:26-31

“And he said unto me, 

My grace is sufficient for thee: 

for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 

Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, 

that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, 

in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, 

in distresses for Christ's sake: 

for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 

~ II Corinthians 12:9-10

“For thus saith the high and lofty One 

that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; 

I dwell in the high and holy place, 

with him also that is of 

a contrite and humble spirit, 

to revive the spirit of the humble, 

and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” 

~ Isaiah 57:15

“O Lord my God,

I cried to You for help, 

and You healed me.”

~ Psalm 30:2

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: 

a broken and a contrite heart, 

O God, thou wilt not despise.” 

~ Psalm 51:17

‘For I will restore you to health

And I will heal you of your wounds,’ declares the Lord,

‘Because they have called you an outcast, saying:

“It is Zion; no one cares for her.”’

~ Jeremiah 30:17

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me

To bring good news to the afflicted;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to captives

And freedom to prisoners;

~ Isaiah 61:1

“For He inflicts pain, and gives relief;

He wounds, and His hands also heal.

~Job 5:18

“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; 

and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”

~ Psalm 34:18

He [Adonai] healeth the broken in heart, 

and bindeth up their wounds.

~Psalm 147:3

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul [mind, will, and emotions]: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. 

~ Psalm 23

  “As He says in Hosea: ‘I will call them ‘My People’ who are not My people, and I will call her ‘My Beloved’ who is not My beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, ‘Ye are not my people’; there shall they be called the children of the living God” 

~Romans 9:25-26

To have a broken heart that’s wounded

To have a broken heart that’s weary

Oh, He cares

Oh, He cares

There is a River wide of Solace

Come wash away your tears and sadness

Oh, Believe

You must believe

Have faith in loving arms invisible

Have trust in beauty indescribable

Oh, there’s Love

There’s really love

All things are given for a purpose

These are for growth and change to make this

World so fair

This world so fair

Cast off your grief and pride, your loneliness

The Spirit speaks to you in Holiness

He is Kind

So very kind

To have a healed heart unbridled

To fill it with His Love, not hide it

Give it away

Give Love away

Rejoice in every gift that’s given

All Good comes from the great Giver

The One who Lives

Who lives Alway

We have a Risen King in Glory

His Name is Worthy of all Authority

Y’shua Reigns!

Y’shua Reigns!

~ Day Poetry, July 2024

Many say that to follow the Lamb of God means one is seeking for something “outside” of oneself, but this passage reveals that God’s Holy Spirit speaks within your heart:

“Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

~ Ephesians 3:7-21

As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

II Corinthians 6:10 

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

 II Corinthians 8:9

  Being known, 

seen and loved by a living God,

just as you are today 

and yielding your will to turn around, 

and become like Him by Grace, 

means you then are being transformed, 

by His work, into His image 

in your character and emotions; 

this perfect Love brings a resulting feeling 

of acceptance and peace, 

which no earthly man, woman or circumstance can take away...

being loved like this beautiful poem depicts 

is the "Why" which motivated the martyrs of old,

I'm pretty certain:

Loved with Everlasting Love

Loved with everlasting love,

Led by grace that love to know;

Spirit, breathing from above,

Thou hast taught me it is so.

Oh, this full and perfect peace!

Oh, this transport all divine!

In a love which cannot cease,

I am His, and He is mine.

Heaven above is softer blue,

Earth around is sweeter green;

Something lives in every hue

Christless eyes have never seen:

Birds with gladder songs o’erflow,

Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine,

Since I know, as now I know,

I am His, and He is mine.

Things that once were wild alarms

Cannot now disturb my rest;

Closed in everlasting arms,

Pillowed on the loving breast.

Oh, to lie forever here,

Doubt and care and self resign,

While He whispers in my ear,

I am His, and He is mine.

His forever, only His:

Who the Lord and me shall part?

Ah, with what a rest of bliss

Christ can fill the loving heart.

Heaven and earth may fade and flee,

Firstborn light in gloom decline;

But, while God and I shall be,

I am His, and He is mine.

~ George Wade Robinson

(1838-1877)