So apparently this is called banana mania in Crayola’s color palette. I would not… repeat would not….. eat a banana this color but I think I may have taken some pictures that are a little banana-maniaish.
Check out other BANANA-COLORED PHOTOS HERE.
This week THE SECRET KEEPER has given us these five words to help us in our creative process:
| WAIT | MEET | TEAR | ACCEPT | CEASE |
Based on these themes, I have chosen to write a a short story this week entitled:
“Braided”
by JE Lillie
I gazed into the mirror hardly recognizing the man staring back. My beard had gotten long and gray.The hair that lay over my shoulder in that long braid was threaded with the same silver that speckled my chin. I looked so tired and old. When had that happened?
The answer flew to mind immediately…no delays there. Life had changed a year-and-a-half before when she left to “find herself”. I wept. I shouted. I begged. I threatened. Nothing worked. She packed and was gone.
That’s when I began the fast. I made a Nazirite vow that day. Maybe it was a little extreme. Maybe it was a little Old Testament. Maybe I couldn’t do the sacrifice part with the lamb, but the rest I was determined to accomplish. I was going to show God I was serious about wanting her back.
In those first months I sent flowers and cards. I called her cell and texted when she wouldn’t answer. I spent my mornings and evenings begging God for her return.
About month five, I began to hear that Inner Voice repeat again and again “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.” I studied the verse from Isaiah; Ruminated on it. I learned that the word “wait” meant to be braided together with God, intertwined completely with His will.The day I learned that, was the first day I braided my hair symbolically to embrace God’s will whatever it was.
Somewhere in the journey the fast stopped being about my marriage and started being about me. In the braiding and unbraiding of my hair a hundred times I learned I was not the man I should have been. I stopped crying for her return and started crying for my own return to the true Lover of My Soul.
She was getting remarried to a good friend of ours even as I looked into that mirror and saw the old man before me. That hurt, but I knew one thing. I no longer needed the braid. God’s will had been done and in spite of my pain I was at peace with it. And that was worth waiting for.
I took the scissors and cut through the braid. It was time to move on.
We are still moving through the book of Romans bit by bit. Once again, we are looking at Romans 1:16, 17. Yesterday we mentioned that the gospel reveals the only acceptable path to God. Today we are going to discuss what that pathway is.
If you have missed any of the previous posts in this series they can all be found on THE ROAD THROUGH ROMANS PAGE.
Here are the verses we are looking at today,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
We are looking specifically at the bold-faced words.
I don’t think it can be said enough that true righteousness comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. Everything in our world is geared towards getting that wrong. Humanism has taught us…ingrained in us…that righteousness comes through men trying really hard and beyond that salvation is earned when trying really hard meets with a bit of good fortune and man’s natural goodness. That is just sooooooooo wrong.
The truth is men are not by nature righteous. We are by nature evil (sorry folks that’s proven true by Scripture and if you’ve actually lived in the world by experience as well). We are not basically good people who sometimes make mistakes. We are basically evil people who sometimes do things properly. Most times when we end up doing the right thing it is because we overcome the temptation to do the wrong thing which first comes to our minds. Much of our current situation comedy entertainment extends from the battle to make the right choice in the midst of the temptation to do the wrong thing, while much of our dramatic entertainment involves stories of what happens when that battle is not won.
Righteousness will never come because of man’s solo triumph over evil. True righteousness can only be obtained AND maintained by placing faith in the power of Jesus Christ to help us overcome ourselves.
“just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’.”
We have much more to say on this subject but we have sixteen more chapters of study to say it in so for now I am…signing off!
Here is the color we are working with today. It is called atomic tangerine! positively radioactive!!!!!
My tangerines are below and you can find the rest of Jennifer’s contributors for the day by clicking on the ATOMIC TANGERINE square above
Zaandyke, The Netherlands
Fall in New England
Atomic Sycamores
We are on a thematic journey through flowery colors with Cee in the Fun Foto Challenge folks! This week Cee has asked us to show her WHITE FLOWERS.
Check out all the contributions at the link above.
Here are mine:
It is 2016 and time once again to SHARE OUR WORLDS. This is week one of the sharing and you can find out all about folks in the New Year by clicking on the underlined link. OK maybe you won’t learn everything but you will learn something and as they say “that is something at least!” 🙂
Ready? Set? HERE WE GO……
As a child, who was your favorite relative?
My favorite relative as a child was my cousin Michael. He was imminently cool. He was closest to my age among the cousins (at least the ones I knew well) and I saw him quite often. I don’t think he felt the same. I was four years his junior definitely not cool and his mother had to baby sit me and my sister. So I guess looking back there were times he didn’t appreciate me as much as I appreciated him but that has changed over the years. He and his wife are now members of the church where I pastor and his daughter is one of our church pianists.
If you could be a tree or plant, what would you be?
I would be a date palm. Big and sweet.
What would be your preference, awake before dawn or awake before noon?
Oh gosh I am usually awake before dawn now and that is most definitely not my favorite…. but awake before noon? 😦 I guess if that could include waking up between 8 and 9 A.M. I would choose that. Sleeping until like 11 feels like such a waste of day light.
Would you like to sleep in a human size nest in a tree or be snuggled in a burrowed spot underground?
Oh underground please. I have always wanted to live in a Hobbit Hole!
photo by: http://www.backpackingearth
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 that I got the 20 pages of back story done for my publisher!
This week I am looking forward to helping at Special Touch REACH New England’s outreach service and I am also looking forward to helping my friend Deb Maciorowski from http://debbestillandlisten.com/ move into her new apartment. Hopefully she will be back writing again soon.
Our church is beginning 21 days of fasting and prayer for the New Year this Sunday. Here is what Ken Knowlton, one of our artist managers, had to say about resolving things for the New Year.
http://artistdayapart.com/be-it-resolved/
This is asparagus…or…green. I will try my hardest to match this palette but admittedly shades are not my forte. So this is really a COLOR CHALLENGE FOR ME.
See how others met the challenge by clicking the underlined link!
Here are my aspargus choices 🙂
Hmm. Sort of
Fields of cows in Cashel….closer?
Now that’s pretty close.
I am playing catch up for a weekend of colors I missed. I was on assignment for my publisher. So I didn’t have a lot of time to blog but here I am with MY RESPONSE TO JENNIFER’S ANTIQUE BRASS CHALLENGE.
Click the underlined link to join the challenge yourself or to see how others responded to it.
So we are delving into Romans 1:16,17 yet again. If you missed our previous devotional thoughts they can be found on THE ROAD THROUGH ROMANS PAGE.
Today I really want to begin looking at the bold faced words in these two verses.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
These words are the launching pad for what is perhaps the major theme for Paul’s letter to the Romans. I guess you could say the theme can be summed up thusly, The way to eternal salvation AND a lifestyle of actual holiness is by faith… OR…the way to the God-approved state is through faith.
Paul develop this theme greatly throughout the book. Honestly, it was pretty radical thinking for his readers back when it was written. Even for us this thought is pretty radical.
When most people think of Heaven they usually think of it as a place of reward for good people, something to be worked towards. When asked why a person should go to Heaven most reply that a person gets to Heaven by doing good or by having his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds. But Paul’s message throughout Romans is that salvation (Heaven) is not obtained by what we do but by who we put our faith in. In fact here in verse 17 Paul even mentions that the ability to be righteous or do good works is based on who we put our trust in. The intimation is that if we do not put our faith in the right person not only will we not attain Heaven we will not even be able to do the things that are truly good.
This is a pretty serious allegation for a world that by and large does not put its faith in Jesus.
I would love to hear your thoughts about Paul’s words here.
Lillie-Put 