Check out other oddities at
Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge: Week 36
Dead faces at Blarney Castle.
Monthly Archives: November 2014
Heaven Pt. 156: The Most Incredible Nobody Who Ever Lives
For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD?who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD? Psm 89:6
The world is full of great men, powerful men. The universe has many examples of incredible power both natural and spiritual. I have watched as men steer the nations with their words saving or destroying the lives of countless individuals. I have seen the devastation of a tsunami and the world- stopping power of a blizzard. I have also been present at times when angels have ministered healing and grace while demons created discord and destruction. But all of these displays of power are small in comparison to the power of God. There is no one like Him. His greatness dwarfs the galaxies that dwarf the planets that dwarf the mountains that dwarf the people who live and walk among them.
In His greatness God is God and therefore the One being in all the universe who has no governing authority but His own character. He is the slave to no galaxy or planet or mountain or man; But we are all His. As this is true, it makes the Scripture in Philippians all that much more potent:
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:” Phil 2:5-7
The God, whose greatness made and one day will unmake the universe, became, in the course of time, the most incredible nobody who ever lives (I can’t say lived because He lives still). The Darling of Heaven was crucified so that you and I might live. Forget the dying part for a minute and just concentrate on what He gave up, even in coming to Earth, so that you might know how special you are to Him. He is so big and you are so little. He holds the span of the universe in His hand. You can hardly hold a basketball in yours. But He gave up that universe-sized hand for one like yours in the hopes that you would catch a glimpse of his dedication and love for you. He became nobody in time so that you could become somebody in eternity!
Now that is love! How could we not love Him back?
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Fact or Faith?
“Faith follows fact. Feelings follow faith.” Watchman Nee
Billy Graham wrote a wonderful devotional regarding faith vs. fact… If you are saved, you are saved through a personal faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as defined in Scripture. Though many may see this as too dogmatic or narrow-minded to many, the fact remains that there is no other way. I Corinthians 15:1, 3,4 states, Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.
The Bible says that we are saved when we believe this objective fact. The work of Jesus Christ is a fact. His cross is a fact. His tomb is…
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A Word A Week: Recline
This week’s word challenge from Sue is: RECLINE
See how everyone else has laid down the challenge at:
http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/a-word-a-week-photograph-challenge-recline/
Here are my shots at reclining:
Me reclining after walking up the “Rocky” stairs at the Philadelphia Art Museum.
Reclining in Delft
This is how we recline at Vacation Bible School
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Reflecting Divine
Reflecting Divine
by JE Lillie
“Darkness stirs the deep.”
Weeps the world.
Argent fire splays across obsidian
Medians, right from left divides.
The sacrifice cries
“My God, my God…”
And then He dies.
Rise up you who would follow!
“Darkness stirs the deep.”
Weeps the world.
Oh salty light on a hillside
Bide your time no more.
Let the sleeper awaken
Taken by the final rising tide.
Renewal, revival expecting,
Reflecting Divine!
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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Bark Or Leaves
Howdy-Do! This week’s Fun Foto Challenge From Cee is: BARK OR LEAVES
http://ceenphotography.com/fun-foto-challenge/
Here’s a little leaft over from my trip to Ireland. Don’t worry the bark is worse than the bite.
A tree by the River Martin
The bark at Torc
Giant leaves in the rock close at Blarney
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Driving Into the Light
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. I John 1:5-7
When I get to Heaven I expect many surprises. I get more than most that there are things about Christianity that just don’t make sense within the current context of a fallen sinful world. We have never known anything but this so how could we expect ourselves to understand something that is totally other than this?
For instance: How do we work out the concept of eternity (the absence of time) in a universe that measures everything in time. How do we rationalize having complete free choice under the auspices of a completely sovereign God? How can innocence ever return when the knowledge of good and evil is so deeply ingrained within our race? AND how can Something or Someone be entirely light in a universe that is only able to measure light by the amount of darkness it dispels?
We cannot fully explain these things now but we Christians must firmly hold to them because God has taught them in His Word.
As Amanda and I mosied from Moher along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, we traveled into a place called the Burren.
The Bay Of Galway
A veritable moonscape splattered along the Western coast of Ireland, the Burren is the badlands between the green spaces of Kerry and Connemara. Amanda and I were struck to silent wonder as we twisted the corkscrew roads down into the nothingness and back up and out again towards the bay of Galway. Always in our travels there was this light in the midst of the lonely terrain that reminded us that magic and mystery can exist side by side with the natural man.
The sun was setting over the Bay of Galway as we pulled into the SaltHill Hotel along Ocean Dr. As it nestled itself to sleep under a haze of dark black cloud I was reminded that I may not know how time and eternity, sovereignty and free will, innocence and knowledge, or light and darkness can exist perfectly side by side, but there are a great many things I do not know or have not seen; My not knowing them or not seeing them does not make them any less so.
What parts of God’s Word do you struggle with because it doesn’t seem to match up with what you have experienced?
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Perseverance
What will the future hold?
I have been reading the book of Daniel and “perseverance” has popped into my head quite a few times throughout the reading of this book. Daniel was a persistent and faithful man. He prayed three times a day since he was a young child.
Now there were some officials that were jealous of Daniel and they could not find any faults with him. So they devised a plan that would definitely make some trouble in Daniel’s life. These men figured the only way they could trap Daniel was by tricking the King into signing a decree against anyone who worshipped any other god besides the King- (King Darius).
So what was the first thing Daniel did after gaining knowledge of the signing of the decree, a decree condemning all who prayed to or worshipped any other god besides the King would be thrown into the lion’s den.
Daniel…
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Share Your World 2014 Week 44
It’s time once again for…
Check it all out at
Share Your World – 2014 Week 44
Here are this week’s questions from Cee and my answers:
What is your most vivid memory of the kitchen in your childhood?
The most vivid memory I have of our kitchen is the red and black indoor outdoor carpeting that covered the floor wall to wall when we first moved into the house. My mother decided to remove it herself and I remember it took us almost seven years to get all the glue scraped off those floors.
As a child, who was your favorite relative?
Oh gosh that’s a hard one! I am assuming we are talking extended family, so I would have to say my father’s mother. She was probably the one I felt closest too. I remember being by her bedside the night she died and singing her the old hymns of the faith as she prepared to meet Jesus. She was the first person to quote John 3:16 to me.
What did you or did not like about the first apartment you ever rented?
Now that’s much easier than the last question. Our first apartment was rented sight unseen from the Bible College I was attending. The walls were bright blue and the carpet was orange. You could literally sit on the toilet and put your feet in the shower because the bathroom was so small and we could not control the heat so it stayed around 85 all winter long (which is better than the alternative I suppose).
What kind of TV commercial would you like to make? Describe it.
TV commercial? Oh wait! I know! I know! It would be a commercial lauding the value of eating peanut butter and spaghetti sauce sandwiches!!!
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I am grateful last week is over….’nuff said. I am soooooooooo looking forward to my daughter’s wedding on Nov. 8th!
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Little I Things I Don’t Want To Forget
We left Killarney and headed towards the coast and the Cliffs of Moher. It was Wednesday. Once again our GPS directed us on some of the smallest roads I had ever seen through rocky countryside that makes my country town feel like a veritable city. It felt most times as thought we were miles from civilisation and that Ireland was all but empty of human life.
Solid as a rock
The Cliffs taken from a fisherman’s vantage.
The stone from “The Half-Blood Prince?”
We arrived at the visitor’s center at Moher around 11 A.M. and discovered that a boat tour of the cliffs was launching at three from the town of Doolin some twenty minutes down the road. Since we had the option of making our own way we decided to eat our lunch atop the cliffs and make our way to Doolin for the three hour wait.
The Village Of Doolin
I suppose while we saw many grand sights on the Emerald Isle it was the little things I will remember most, those things that made the trip truly unique: The smell of peat burning as we passed through villages in the countryside, the fact that pharmacies in Ireland are depicted by neon green crosses, the mirror at the hotel room in Galway that didn’t fog in the middle, the color of the buildings, the way the country roads all have a strip of the greenest grass growing down the center. It is the little memories that made the place stand out, that made it all so magical.
Lillie-Put 