IN THE DARKEST NIGHT - BV9

IN THE DARKEST NIGHT
God’s got more surprises in the night. The Associated Press announced today: “NASA confirmed a bonanza of 715 newly discovered planets outside our solar system. Twenty years ago, astronomers had not found any planets circling stars other than the ones revolving around our sun. Astronomers used a new confirmation technique to come up with the largest single announcement of a batch of exoplanets — what planets outside our solar system are called. All the new planets are in systems like ours where multiple planets circle a star. The 715 planets came from looking at just 305 stars.” Isn’t that amazing? And God has a plan for every one of them. He already knew they were there, but we didn’t.

This Saturday will be the new moon, which means the moon is barely a sliver so we will be able to see the stars and planets clearer.

I find it fascinating to look at the night sky and think that it’s basically the same sky mankind looked at thousands of years ago. And God knew what we could see with our naked eyes, so He put the stories of His son Jesus up there for all to read. In fact, what’s written in the sky is much older than any printed version of the Bible.
Psalm 19:1 says: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
Psalm 147:4 says: “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.”

There’s not too many people who really know the true meaning of the constellations or the stars they contain. If you’re interested, WITNESS OF THE STARS by E.W. Bullinger is an excellent book on the subject. But here, I’ll give you some brief facts as a teaser to looking up some of the other fascinating information later on.

The names for the constellations, the numbering of the stars within them and the names of the stars have the same meaning in all the ancient nations. The Chinese, Chaldean and Egyptian records go back more than 2000 years B.C. and some sources say that their zodiacs had been copied from records going back even further. The fact that they named the same stars for the same constellation pictures is pretty awesome considering that several of the constellations don’t really look like what they are called.

There are twelve zodiac signs. Between each zodiac sign, there are sometimes several smaller constellations. Each constellation tells a part of the story of Jesus. For example, Virgo (the virgin) is a woman holding a branch in her right hand. The brightest star in Virgo is Spica, which is also known by its Arabic name, Al Zimach, meaning “the branch.” The word “branch” is used in the Bible to denote the Messiah.
Another star in Virgo is Zavijaveh, which means “the gloriously beautiful,” as in Isaiah 4:2: “In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious.” The star in the arm that bears the branch is named Al Mureddin, which means “who shall come down,” or “who shall have dominion. So the constellation Virgo tells us that the branch of God, Jesus Christ, beautiful and glorious, was coming to earth and would have dominion.

In between Virgo and Leo (the Lion, Jesus Christ) lies the constellation Coma. And next to Coma lies Centaur, with the head of a man and body of a horse, signifying the dual nature of Jesus Christ, who went about doing good (the head) but who was despised of men (ever heard the term “he’s a horse’s ass?”). Well He showed them and continues to do so.

This Saturday when the sky is darkest, how about taking a look at a star map and find the constellations I mentioned—Virgo, Leo, Coma and the Centaur? See if you can remember some of the things I’ve told you here.

Love, Carolyn

For more, check out Witness of the Stars by E.W. Bullinger on Amazon. I also have an extended chapter on this subject in my book, WINGS: A Journey in Faith, also available through Amazon.

ANXIETY RELIEF

I got the call Saturday, “No work on Monday.” This job has been way too sporadic and it’s beginning to make me really anxious. There’s 19 rooms needing touch-up but instead of working consistently, we work two days, off three. Then we wait a week, start again, work three days, off four days. One time we were off for two weeks, then back on for three days, then off again. This has been going on since December and there’s only three rooms done. It’s starting to get to me. I’m a good worker and I’m just getting back on my feet after taking care of a sick friend. How the heck am I supposed to pay my bills and keep up, on this kind of a schedule?

When I got the call Saturday it was the last straw. I felt like calling my other friends from other companies to see if they had work for me. My motivation was frustration and anger. I felt like my current company was starting to take advantage of me and I didn’t deserve that.

Though I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket a few times, I put it back. I didn’t want to over react. I’ve been working on being more patient. As one preacher puts it, “Sit down, have a cup of tea and give God a little time to work.” Proverbs 20:22 tells us to “Wait on the Lord.”

I went to Proverbs 3 and began to read verses 5-7: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart…. Be not wise in thine own eyes. Respect the Lord, and depart from evil.” In other words, if I had gone by my own wise ways, I would have made the phone calls right away and not even gone to the Lord for His wisdom and that would have been evil.

Instead, I waited on the Lord. I read further in verse 8 where it says that if I do those things from verses 5-7, trusting God and waiting on His wisdom, “it shall be health to thy navel.” That’s King James, but I looked in the notes and they say, “It shall be medicine to thy nerves.” Wow. There it was, God’s answer—God’s anxiety medicine and I took it.

I calmly waited and drank my proverbial tea, trusting that the Lord was working on my behalf. It wasn’t even ten minutes before I got a text from the lead person in the sample shop of the same company. She said she had work for me on Monday. Just to let you know, there has not been any work available in the sample shop for over five months, until just today. Thank you, Lord, and thank you to those who allowed God to work in you to get me working on Monday.

It’s well worth it to wait on the Lord.

Love, Carolyn

Check out one of my sample books under my name on Amazon. They’re only $.99

ZOMBIES ARE NO MATCH FOR YOU - BV8

The zombies are on the way and the hero of the movie tells the family, “People who keep moving live.”

Movement is life. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about movement in the aspect of staying flexible. When I got blocked from certain capabilities on Facebook, the first thing that popped into my head (after a brief dance with disappointment) was: “God will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19).

I wasn’t going to give up on reaching people with my writing, but I knew I had to be pliable and malleable to the Holy Spirit, ready to go in a divergent direction if necessary.

When we know what we’re doing is God’s will, nothing can stop us, but we may have to be a little flexible in the execution. We can’t be making all kinds of rules about how we do everything. Putting stiff unbreakable rules on ourselves can lead to rigidity and even ridiculous hard heartedness. That’s what happened to the Pharisees. They knew it was God’s will to heal people but they also knew that they weren’t supposed to do any work on the Sabbath. They became overbearingly inflexible about not working on the Sabbath, to the point that when Jesus went to heal a man on the Sabbath, they wanted to kill him.

Now I know none of us would be as crazy as the Pharisees, but at times we’ve sacrificed the bigger good in order to satisfy our own smaller rules.

I realized my bigger goal of reaching people with what God has me write was more important than how I went about it. When I was blocked, I became malleable like a flowing river and the Holy Spirit sent me flying around different bends that opened up all kinds of new exciting tributaries.

Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. When obstacles come up against the traditions you’ve set up, let the Holy Spirit take you around some new bends in the stream. It may be more thrilling and more satisfying than you ever imagined.

Don’t get stuck in rigid rules. If you get brittle, you’ll break. Be willing to go in a slightly different direction as the Holy Spirit opens new ways. The zombies will never be able to get you if you just keep moving.

Love, Carolyn

FREE download starts this Thursday: Part One of WINGS: A JOURNEY IN FAITH, on Amazon.

SPIRITUAL GUARDS AGAINST BANDITOS ALONG THE WAY

Mario told me he drives 23 hours straight through when he takes his family to visit his relatives down in Mexico. I asked him why. He replied, “There are many banditos along the way and I am protecting my family.” It reminded me of Genesis 24, one of my favorite Bible records where Abraham sent his servant to find a bride for Isaac.

The servant had some doubts about the trip but Abraham told him, “The Lord will send his angel before thee and with thee, and prosper thy way.” What exactly did this mean?

The servant had to travel about 450 miles through rough lands carrying a dowry for the prospective bride. So, like with my friend Mario, there were banditos along the way ready to relieve the servant of his many precious treasures. Part of the angel’s job was to go ahead of the servant and make sure the banditos were not going to be around to attack and steal the goods. Abraham was extremely rich, so he would have had many camels with loads of gold, silver, beautiful clothing, etc.

The other part of “prospering thy way” was to make sure the servant actually acquired the treasure (the wife) he came for. And, indeed it did happen.

How do these scriptures relate to us? If you consider that our lives are a journey, then these verses from Genesis 24 relate to us in many ways and can be applied in many circumstances. We all have possessions, consider them treasures. We’d like them to last and not be lost or stolen along the way. We can use these scriptures to loose angels (like it says in Matthew 16:19) to protect our treasures—our homes, our cars, our businesses, our livestock, our many precious possessions. Considering all the servant took with him, he most likely had others to help him and the angel protected them too. We could use these verses when we’re asking protection for our loved ones, as well as our personal safety and the protection of our goods.

Part of the angel’s mission was to prosper the servant by making sure he got what he went for. In this case it was the right woman. Whatever things God has given you permission to go after, you could send angels on these verses to prosper your way by making sure you get what you are after too.

It’s also something to note that the angel was sent out to prosper the way of a servant. This guy wasn’t a king or a corporate giant. He was a servant. Every single born again person has access to angels, like it says in Hebrews 1:14, they are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who are the heirs of salvation. Galatians 3:29 says we are the heirs.

Today I am praying for you, that you will read this record in Genesis 24 in light of your own journey and think about how you can loose angels to prosper your way.

Love, Carolyn

Reminder: It’s not too late to start on your journey through my WINGS book – One chapter per week to inspire and launch you into new adventures of wisdom and knowledge. You can find it on Amazon in paperback or e-book.

STOP TRYING TO BE SO (bleep) INDEPENDENT - BV7

My friend Robert related his story with me and said I could share it. So many of us need to be reminded of the principles he shared.

“My back was really messed up. I couldn't walk, sit, or stand for more than a few minutes at a time. I asked God to help me see what I was doing wrong and he took me to the record about Jacob wrestling with the angel. He told me this is what I had been doing for 30 years! I cried like a baby. All that time I thought I was "believing God" but I was actually doing everything myself and it caught up with me.

I had wondered why Jacob was saying he wouldn't let the angel go until he got the blessing, when I knew his father had given him the blessing years earlier. The name Jacob meant supplanter or someone who was a hustler, while Israel meant "favored of God." For Jacob to receive the blessing he had to change from doing things himself to relying on God’s favor. This is why the angel changed Jacob’s name to Israel. It took me 30 years to get that, but I'm SO thankful to God for not giving up on me!

One of the greatest lessons I learned from that experience was that when we ask for God’s help we have to be willing to do what He says. All I wanted at first was to be healed so I could continue just as I had been. But when I asked God to show me what I needed to do to be healed he spent the next 7 months showing me where my believing was wrong so I wouldn't throw away my healing when I received it!

He's got the wisdom if we will just listen. I'd have to say that it was the greatest experience of my entire life and one that I will never forget. In a lot of ways we are just kids in way too much of a hurry to grow up and we don't take time to listen.

By the way, once He showed me this, I asked what I should do next and He told me who to call. I called and asked this person to minister to me. They did and my back was healed instantly! It took God about 7 months of working with me to bring me to that point. He truly does give more grace to the humble.”

Love, Carolyn

My book WINGS: A JOURNEY IN FAITH is available on Amazon under my name. If you like my stories, I think you’ll like the book even more.

PRAYER FROM THE SHADOWS

Deliver my soul from the wicked. Your wisdom is what I seek. The world seems more dangerous now. With some of the changes in government policies, business practices, social attitudes, etc., I feel like I’m in a foreign country or maybe more accurately, a foreign universe. I’m in Blade Runner, Escape from New York, Hunger Games, some kind of crazy futuristic movie, only it’s not the future. I’m part of the underground, always have been but now it’s even more real. God help me to navigate.

I understand some of the deceptions, some of the dead ends, the trickeries, the lies, but not all of them. Who can be trained for ALL of them? No one. I tell you, no one! Without the foresight of the Lord Jesus Christ the living Lord, humanity hasn’t much of a chance against the wiles of the enemy. Who can know all of his tricks, all of his hiding places?

Not me. But my Lord, my mentor, He knows and He teaches me—I need to know. In treacherous waters, in the valley of the shadow of death, in the present mine field of iniquity, I need a constant mentor and guide. 

The enemy: always new attacks, new weapons, new strategies. I can no longer entertain the naïve idea that I can conquer with anything BUT the current download of wisdom from the omniscient master. It’s too dangerous to even try without Him. Only with Him can I ford the stream safely, traverse the mine field without exploding a hidden detonator and breaking in a thousand pieces.

I thank you God for constant instruction and mercy when I need it.

From Him: “The battle is on. Engage. And find rest when you can.”

Love, Carolyn

Announcement: New book coming out soon! If you haven’t read the first one yet, you can get it either in paperback or digital on Amazon – WINGS: A JOURNEY IN FAITH FROM THE EARTHLY TO THE HEAVENLY.

KNIFE STABBING AND FESTERING DECAY -BV6

The other morning I was crabby about having to do housework and spoke harshly to my roommate. Until we train ourselves otherwise, we often take out our frustrations on those closest to us. We figure they love us and will put up with our bad behavior. But what about when they don’t?

“I have feelings too,” she said. “When you do that, it makes me feel bad. You said mean things to me and I didn’t do anything wrong.” Well it cut like a knife to the heart, but my immediate response was to get all defensive and instead of apologizing right away, I got even angrier. I think we get the maddest when we know we’re wrong. No one wants to be wrong. Why couldn’t she just have ignored it?

But she didn’t. She confronted me and that was the right thing to do.

How many times have relationships fallen apart because stabbing words have been ignored rather than confronted? The hurt turns into a festering, decaying puncture wound that may appear to go away, but only gets buried for a while and never really gets healed. Finally all the little punctures and cuts connect and the resultant rotting wound is nearly irreparable and the original source of the problem is some distant fuzzy memory.

The source of my anger, for instance, had nothing to do with my roommate, and I think this is often the case. Something becomes a trigger and we bring emotional responses from an incident in the past into the present when they don’t belong there. Right now, I don’t even know what the original source incident was that made me so upset. But I know the Holy Spirit will show me one day, and hopefully it will be soon so I can get healed of it.

Learning to act right is a constant process. Peter tells us, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11).

I was glad my roommate confronted me. She made me see my sin and I felt bad about it. She didn’t deserve my wrath. We talked. She understood that I was acting out of the past and was lashing out at something totally not related to her. I told her I was sorry. She forgave me and I determined to act better.

Sometimes after we get confronted with our sins, we get all down on ourselves and pitiful, but the Lord is not one for pity parties. He says, “Lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed” (Heb 12:12-13). This is a really important point. When we get lovingly confronted with our wrongs, we need to choke down our pride and straighten up our ways so that our relationships can be healed. If we don’t do this, the scripture says we are lame and could be turned out of the way. If we value our relationships we don’t want to get turned out of the way.

After our incident the other day, neither one of us carried any residual bad feelings and went on to have a great day. Our friendship is peaceful and richer because of the honesty, boldness and transparencies we share.

Love, Carolyn

Sample B on MIRACLES is available for free this week, Thurs. Feb 6 thru Mon Feb 10. Download it from Amazon onto your computer or other device. If you haven’t gotten my book yet, it’s a great workbook with chapters for each week of the year – WINGS: A JOURNEY IN FAITH FROM THE EARTHLY TO THE HEAVENLY.

STOMACH SMARTER THAN YOUR BRAIN?

This is a revised chapter from my book. I’m sharing it because a similar situation came up just yesterday. Also I want you to see how the questions at the end of the chapter can really help you take the message to heart and see how it either has or hasn’t worked in your own life. So here goes:

I know you’ve heard the phrase, “I couldn’t stomach it.” Well, that literally happened to me last week. My stomach got all knotted up and nothing would go through—everything I ate felt like it was stuck, and I mean really stuck—it hurt. I couldn’t eat, only drank ginger ale and ate a little toast; I was getting weak. I thought maybe I’d eaten something bad, but that wasn’t it. Here’s what happened:

It was a Thursday and we found out at work that we were to do some ceiling murals for an addition at one of the casinos. I was excited. The murals that are there now are spectacular and it was a dream come true to be able to do something to even complement them. To even be considered in the same category was thrilling.

I started on a mock-up for the project. I walked up the stairs into our area and on a piece of vinyl, my bosses had already painted in a sky and blocked in areas of green for the trees and roses. So far, so good. My big boss said, “I have a presentation Monday and I’d like to take this with me.” That meant that I had only two days to get it done. My immediate boss was also going to work on it and had started mixing colors, but she was busy with another project that day. I got into it right away, but there were a lot of unanswered questions I was stressed.

We were to paint as if you are looking up and there is a roof garden with orange trees up there and roses, some of which are hanging down toward you. There are also some birds flying in the sky above.

First of all, I didn’t know what scale we were working in. In other words, how tall were the trees supposed to be, and what about the size of the closest orange? How was this mural going to be done on a large scale? Were other people going to work on it or just me? Or maybe just me and my two bosses? Or did I have to make it simple enough for a lot of people with less ability to be able to work on it together and make it look cohesive?

And that was just the beginning of my questions. What about method? Should we sponge in areas of green? Or maybe we should make a stencil of different sized leaves, getting smaller as they got further away? Or could we just use brushes to paint it? What was the best way to do this? What about colors? My immediate boss had mixed up nine greens, but I also needed two colors for the branches and three colors for the oranges, and that’s not counting the rose bushes or the birds. And did I mention that we didn’t really have a good reference to look at? We only had one small picture off the computer and it was really small and we couldn’t see many details. My brain was screaming.

I felt like I really needed these questions answered to come up with viable solutions for the problems I was faced with, but my bosses were busy so I had to just carry on alone.

That’s where I made my big mistake. Jesus said, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt 6:33). I should have just stopped, gotten quiet, asked for God’s help and then started. It’s not that hard, but I allowed myself to get flustered and I forgot the very first step.

In Exodus 35 and 36 is the record of how God gave his artists three things. The first was wisdom. Wisdom is how to do something. God also gave them knowledge, or information. And thirdly, He gave them understanding. I believe in this, and I’ve proven it many times in my artwork.

But this time, I left God out of the first part of the project; I got overwhelmed and then instead of relying on God to show me, I relied on sheer determination and pride that I could ramrod it through and accomplish what was needed. But when the pride had nothing substantial to latch on to…Bam! Real terror set in and gripped me hard. My thoughts were bombarded with: “My bosses can do a better job than I’m doing. I’m not as skilled as they are. I don’t know how to do this. What if they hate what I’m doing and don’t let me work on it because I’m doing such a poor job?”

It got worse and worse until I felt like a total failure. Then the stomach problems started, all the stress causing nausea and terrible cramps. The nerves in my gut were recording what was really true. My stomach couldn’t stomach what a low place I had allowed myself to go. I really think my stomach may have been smarter than my brain at this point.

In Chapter Three of The Maker’s Diet, author Jordan Rubin talks about the nerves in the GI tract: “There are nearly one hundred million nerve cells in the gut alone.” Rubin quotes Sandra Blakeslee, a science writer specializing in cognitive neuroscience: “Each of us literally has two brains—the familiar one encased in our skulls and a lesser-known but vitally important one found in the human gut.”

Rubin goes on to say, “Early in our embryogenesis, a collection of tissue called the “neural crest” appears and divides during fetal development. One part turns into the central nervous system, and the other migrates to become the enteric nervous system. . . .  We are still discovering ways the enteric nervous system mirrors the central nervous system. Nearly every substance that helps run and control the brain has turned up in the gut!”

The Monday deadline came and though the mural wasn’t done but it looked pretty darn good. The big boss took pictures to the meeting and the imminent pressure was off, but I was still in a lot of agony—mentally, emotionally and physically. It wasn’t until we moved on to more pressing things that I had the sense of being totally free. I told God I was sorry I didn’t go to Him first. In my heart I really let go. Even though it was a desire of my heart to do the mural I had to be totally willing to just let it go and I did. And you guessed it, the cramping knot in my gut relaxed and let go too. In a few days my stomach was totally normal again.

I learned to put God first and listen to my gut. When I let go, I gave in to God and it all worked out great. I ended up doing the mural with several friends and it’s now on the ceiling of the Palazzo on the Las Vegas Strip.

Love, Carolyn

QUESTIONS FOR PONDERING OR DISCUSSION

1.      Can you think of a time when a distasteful circumstance ended up registering its effect in your body? How did you handle it? Did that work for you? Would you do anything different if a similar circumstance should come up?

2.      Which daily tasks do you typically handle on your own?

3.      Which tasks or situations do you typically take to the Lord first?

More great chapters in my book WINGS: A Journey in Faith. You can get it from Amazon.