Monthly Archives: December 2014

Who’s that knocking at my door

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Just let Him in.

Ken Knowlton's avatarartistdayapart

Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends (Revelation 3:20). 

How many times have we heard a knock at the door and thought to ourselves, Oh, no! Not company now ?  Maybe the house was a mess.  Or perhaps you had a tough day and were too tired to entertain.  Or worse, maybe it was someone trying to sell you something.  Regardless, we heard the knocking, but wanted to avoid opening the door.  Other times we may be busy concentrating on something, or in another part of the house, or simply outside and we simply don’t hear the knocking.

               

Jesus is always knocking at the door to our heart.  He doesn’t care how messy it is.  He doesn’t expect to be entertained.  He’s not trying to sell…

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone But Not Forgotten

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This week the Daily Post has challenged photographers to bring up pictures of things that are GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.

You can see how others interpreted the theme at:

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/gone-but-not-forgotten/

Here are my thoughts concerning the matter.

“Think about your day yesterday. Did you build your priorities around the truth of repayment at the resurrection? Or were you, like so many well-intentioned believers I know, operating on the assumption that work for God now equals compensation from  God now?

If so you are seeing only the glare of the temporary where Jesus hopes you’ll see the galaxies of eternity.” Bruce Wilkinson,  A Life God Rewards

Pastor Wrinkles wild and crazy days as a youth pastor are gone but not forgotten. Someday I may even receive a reward in Heaven for being willing to wear this costume at a youth convention in front of 1100 teenagers.

Pastor Wrinkles’ wild and crazy days as a youth pastor are gone but not forgotten. Someday I may even receive a reward in Heaven for being willing to wear this costume at a youth convention in front of 1100 teenagers.

Dr. Seuss said, “Don’t be sad that it is over be glad that it happened.” For me that is true of so many things.

It is different now but I still cherish the years I have known this lady.

 

He Gave!

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

Autumn Rainbow In New England

“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans–and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused–and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”
― Sigrid Undset

Pastor Wrinkles On Why,I Can Make It Anywhere!

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http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/make-it-anywhere/

Today the Daily Post has asked…“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” goes the famous song about New York City. Is there a place — a city, a school, a company — about which you think (or thought) the same? Tell us why, and if you ever tried to prove that claim.

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I’ve never made it out of my hometown. Something of pain or shame exists in that admission and I am not really sure why. I suppose it means that somewhere in my younger self there was this dream that lived for a time in the understanding that I was made for “bigger” things… “bigger” places. Yet something held me at the borders of my own lands. What was it? A spell? A fear? A psychic wall? A dream? A Calling?

My mother wanted me to be a doctor. My father, I think, wanted me to be anything that got me away from this place that I never got away from. My sister has moved all over the world and my children (some of them) display the same signs of wanderlust that leads to adventure while I live like a Hobbit never wanting to stray too far from my own front door.

I think maybe the shame and guilt of only making it as far as my own garden might have more to do with the dreams of others than with my own dreams. For as long as I can remember I only ever aspired to a quiet life of pastoral bliss, walking the rocky New England Fields and listening to the bubbling of the stony fresh-water brooks that dot our landscape. I want to hear the twittering of the birds in the trees and feel the winds of these Massachusetts seasons as they pass over me in repose.

I want to see the world, truly see the world from my own vantage point, the place where I was planted by the Great Himself. I think it has been given to others to run the earth as they watch the sky. They must do that for themselves to succeed. If I can stand and occupy this little space for a time, my time, then that is “big” enough and I can make it “anywhere”, which after all is only ever really “here”.

 

Friday Fictioneers: Encased

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flowers with Ice-Janet Webb (2)

Above is the photo prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers a flash fiction challenge offered up by Rochelle. You can find her response to the challenge and those of her contributors at:

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/5-december-2014/

Here is my response.

Encased:

By JE Lillie

The days which followed the ice were dark and cold not  because they were dark and cold.We had no lights, no heat, no refrigeration, no phones, no computers but all that was expected. The felling of 10,000 trees had cut us off from the rest of society. It was the loneliness that nearly drove us mad.

It was a week before we heard the chain saws coming up our road. Someone in town hall had remembered we were out there and thought we might need help. That was the year Daddy stopped being a doomsday prepper and moved us into the condo in town.

 

 

Heaven Pt. 158:So Very High

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The Heaven posts are a devotional word study through the Bible using every reference to the word “Heaven”.

The Way By the Cliffs of Moher

The Way By the Cliffs of Moher

“he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;”

Psm. 103:10,11

Sometimes in my place of prayer I become overwhelmed with a sense of my own sinfulness. I feel like Isaiah standing in the Temple of the Lord,  who said “ “Woe to me!…I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5

Does that ever happen to you?

At such moments I could easily be swallowed alive by the feelings of guilt if it were not for a truth buried even more deeply within me. That truth is Jesus loves me! Jesus forgives me! Though my sins were as scarlet He has made them white as snow! AND If Jesus has forgiven me who am I not to forgive myself?

The truth is His love is higher than the Heavens. How high is that? Well I guess it depends on which Heavens we are talking about?

Is it higher than the first Heaven the Heaven which the birds fly in? Well then that is about a mile high. That’s pretty high but I think God’s love is bigger than a mile.

Then is it higher than the second Heaven. the Heaven where the planets and stars dwell? Well that is much higher. We are talking light years not miles. And who knows where the end of the universe is? Well no one on this planet, but still our universe is measurable. I think God’s love for me is even bigger than that.

It is higher than the third Heaven, a place beyond the boundaries of time and space, framed in eternity a thing itself unaffected by time. The distance to it cannot be measured by any of our human standards. That is the love God has for me, immeasurable by my standards and yet it is even higher than that!

Let’s suffice it to say God’s love is so big and vast and immeasurable I cannot lose it. If I don’t want God’s love I purposely have to throw it away because there is no other way to get rid of it. Now there’s a guilt killer if ever there was one!

A Photo A Week Challenge: White

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Nancy’s challenge to us this week is all about the word: WHITE

http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/a-photo-a-week-challenge-white/

As soon as I saw the word my mind went immediately to….. SNOW

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But honestly snow is not all bad. Isaiah the prophet speaking for God said,

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Isaiah 1:18