God is good

This past week was scary. Finances were already too tight, then John's salary is cut on top of it all.

But.

God is good.

After a morning of consoling a crying three-year old over the lack of Cheerios or breakfast food, I received a note from a friend telling me God placed it on her heart to wire money. I was able to go out and buy cereal and food for the week!

Last week the cats circled my ankles begging for food. I opened the cabinet and we were just about out. I had to give them a third of their daily serving. I asked God to somehow provide so the animals wouldn't go hungry.

A friend pulled me aside later in the day with the "God placed it on my heart to give this to you." She shoved dollar bills into my hands. Just enough to buy more cat food! Later in the day I was approached by yet another friend who handed me a gift card to the local grocery store as well as some cash. Both from annonymous donors. We were about out of food again and now we can supplement what we picked up at a local food bank last night.

Right now all of our resources are going into keeping our house any paying down the tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt. We still have to alternate which bills get paid each month and which don't (Exel Energy doesn't waste any time calling you again and again reminding you you haven't paid the bill for the month. Sorry. They have to wait till next month.)

Nonetheless, God is providing for our most basic needs. If we lose the house, we have a plan. Kyle and I would have to move to PA. John would stay and work out the details. That would be hard and heart-breaking, but we have a plan. We won't be living in a refrigerator box on the corner of Hampden and Wadsworth!

Things look bleak. But I feel a sense of peace. Those of you who've followed me over the years know that peace isn't exactly an inherent quality of mine. My first reaction to anything hard is FREAK OUT!

I'm finding that when I give up my lust to make it all better, that's when God steps in and acts. My flying around like a bumble bee on speed to make extra money right NOW only gets in His way.

That doesn't mean I'm sitting back in my reading chair analyzing my belly-button. I'm taking reasonable actions to add to our income. There is no fast answer. Building a business takes time. Between my writing and my AVON, hopefully one of these days we can bring home enough to stop going to the food bank we found last night.

Don't pay your morgage!

Leave it to the O-trauma administration to come up with this great idea: punch the people hurting the most. A lot of homeowners were conned into buying beyond their means by the Democrat Party's belief that owning a home is a right, not an earned privlidge. Banks were forced to finance people who couldn't pay back loans. Fannie and Freddie are the poster children of that disaster. Will our "hope and change" prez help the people duped by his party? Nope.

... it is not only the over-mortgaged whom Obama will ignore, but those who have lost their jobs! If you do not make enough money such that your mortgage payments come to 31 percent of your income, you can't get your mortgage refinanced. If your income has dropped to a point where your monthly payments on your loan consume a greater part of your earnings than 31 percent, you are stuck. - Dick Morris former CLINTON advisor

As a parent, how do I teach my child about responsibility? Be frugal. Save. Don't squander. - when those behaviors are punished and irresponsibility and is rewarded? Personal responsibility is no longer a value of this new "hope and change" culture.

The new administration's beating down of the people he promised to help continues.

O-trauma is ripping scholarships out of the hands of poor kids in DC forcing them from the private education they earned, back into failing schools. But his kids go to one of the most expensive schools in the Capital. Public education was NEVER a viable option. What does this say about our prez? He doesn't want his daughters "soiled" by low-income influences.

Throwing fake money (I say fake b/c they're just putting ink on paper with nothing of value to back it up) only makes things worse. Obama's doing exactly what the consumers did to get into this mess in the first place! Over-spending. Extending credit beyond reasonable ability to pay.

Some of these trillions of dollars come from countries that hate us and are salivating over the chance to watch America collapse on itself. Who is Big Spender Obama selling us to, and why?

My family will continue to pay the mortgage and credit card debt and pray God will protect us from the insanity our government is imposing.

Against all my common sense

Gloom, doom and despair. The media and Democrats are trying to stir up such a panic over the economy that people will beg the government for help. It's their way of scaring the American people into allowing them to pass that "stimulus" package.

Obama is spending $200 MILLION to re-seed the mall in Washington b/c his worshipers destroyed it during the inauguration.

Citi Group is spending $400 MILLION of OUR taxpayer bail-out money for vanity rights to name the Yankees stadium after themselves.

The list goes on...

Then there's that guy in CA who lost his job and murdered his family before turning the gun on himself.

Scary stuff.

Saturday I was driving down Pierce on my way to Columbine HS for a winter guard show. Midway, I felt my chest tighten, my breathing shallowed and those weird star things poked into my peripheral vision.

IRS wants our money (peanuts compared to the dude Obama appt'd to take it over - the dude who is filthy stinking rich and "forgot" to pay taxes? The dude who they are letting it slide?). Excell energy wants to turn off the power (again). I need refills on my medications and my prayers for provision have not been answered. My husband is panicking. He's considering a night shift at Taco Bell if he can compete with illegal aliens for the job.

Panic, panic, panic.

I read Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest yesterday and came across this (again). "Jesus said if we would obey the life of God within us, He would look after all other things. Did Jesus Christ lie to us?...If we are not experience the "much more" He promised...we are not living the life God has given us and have cluttered our minds with confusing thoughts and worries."

A long time ago I read a biography about Oswald Chambers. He wasn't some prune-faced guru sitting in a zen garden smoking lotus leaves. He was a missionary in India. He died in his mid-thirties. All that wisdom in someone who died at my current age. Oswald lived everything he preached. His wife compiles Utmost so his example would live on.

All the disgusting thievery going on in our government and all those other money-grubbing institutions is feeding my fear, my worry, my anxiety. Due dates for essential bills have come and gone. And come and gone. And come and gone. We've prayed, we've cried, we've taken on extra work projects in hopes to make money to meet our basic needs of food, water, electricity, shelter and medicine. And it's far from enough.

Where is God? Where'd He go? Anyone see Him?

He promised to meet our needs.

I stopped believing Him and have been trying to take matters into my own hands (again).

Then I read that little phrase by Oswald: "Did Jesus Christ lie to us?"

Y'know, that thought was stabbing me in the brain before I read those words. The passage in Matt 6 seems to follow me wherever I try to hide. "Do you think I'm a liar?"

How do I answer that to my Lord?

"Oh no, Jesus, you're God for hiccuping out loud! You can't lie!"

"Darcie, you sure live like I'm a liar. Actions are louder than words. I'm hurt."

Then last night a Words for the Journey, my friend Kim Woodhouse spoke to us about writing through adversity. She changed it up a lot since I heard her speak in the fall.

Her family was in great need. Her daughter has a life-threatening condition and they were no-where Alaska. They needed the basics (food, electricity, water and medical stuff). Kim laid on the floor and cried out to God. "Don't you see our need? We are missionaries. We gave up everything to serve you and we are in such great need with no means of meeting them ourselves."

She and God went back and forth. He finally made it clear that she didn't need anything. Not food. Not water. Not clothing or medicine. She only needed Him. He had to be enough.

Slinking down in my chair, I twiddled my thumbs, counted canned lighting in the ceiling.

Kim's dynamic in her presentation and uses her hands. When she told about her begging God and His response, she clamped her hand on my shoulder.

Lord Jesus, could you be a little more obvious?

All that in one day.

The freak-fest in our home isn't only confined to me. My poor husband is a quivering mass of cellular matter. He freaks, I freak. He freaks more, I spaz and get headaches.

My other friend Kay told me (and Kim backed her up - double teamed) I need to focus on the God/me relationship. Let Him take care of John. John needs to focus on his God/John relationship.

But...but... the IRS...

Do I believe my God is bigger than the IRS? Excell Energy? Denver Water? Kaiser Permanente?
Maybe I need to rewrite the Veggie-Tales song, "God is bigger than the boogey man" to "God is bigger than the (pause) IRS".

Here goes. I'm gonna go against any and all common sense I might have and trust God. Not allow myself to get confused and distracted by all the crap swirling around in our world. When I want to panic, I need to run to my Bible. I need to let my friends know so they can pray me through it.

I don't have the strength or intestinal fortitude to do this.

But doesn't He promise He is strong in our weaknesses?

Homeless teen blogs her journey

If you don't read suspense author, Brandilyn Collins' blog, take a hop on over.

One of Brandilyn's rabid readers (hmmm, that sounds like a facebook group name) lost her home and is living in her car with her 16 year old daughter. The woman may have a job possibility, but it requires a permanent address! I swear our system is so contrarian. Get a job to pay for a place to live. To have a job you have to have a place to live.

Brandilyn is taking donations on her PayPal account for this family. They are fellow beleivers and need help. I wish I could give $$, but my family is only a hair's width away from being where they are. What I can do, is make the need known among my group of readers.

To read Katy's blog (the 16 year old) go here.

Should you decide to help, let Brandilyn know you're a Litterbox reader! It will be interesting to see how the word spreads. Also, if you blog, link to Brandilyn's blog and to Katy's blog as well.

Need First Responders to Save America

Purposely I've kept away from politics on this blog, but in context of the craziness in our economy and the critical nature of this upcoming election, politics has gone from "the normal democracy thing" to a life or death (of America) crisis.

It's not by accident that public schools run at top levels by leftist and Marxist idealogs have revised historical texts to fit their philosophy and have even removed history from core studies. How many state and national tests measure historical knowledge and understanding beyond spewing dates?

I feel like Abraham when he's in Sodom and Gomorrah. God wants to destroy the city. Abraham begs, "If I can find a thousand people who are righteous will you spare the city?" Abraham dwindles his number down to like, ten and God said He'd spare the city if Abraham could find a mere ten. He couldn't. The cities exploded into flame and ashes. Lot's wife was reduced to the contents of a salt shaker b/c she longed for that awful place.

America has hundreds of thousands of people who believe in our constitution. Who believe in our system that is a republic. Capitalism and free market. Do we buy into the current market panic and surrender to the Democrats and their Marxist cronies and slide into the evil of Communism?

Remember the Soviet Union? Have any of you been there? Do you have any friends and family in any former Soviet states?

I've been to Moscow, Russia and the tiny Baltic nation of Lativa. Granted it was post-Soviet, but the devestation of the horrid regime is obvious everywhere in those nations. I'm not exaggerating.

With my own two feet, I've stood on a thrity foot tall pile of rubble the Soviet storm troopers made of Lativan homes in a peaceful agricultural villiage. The Latvians were slaughtered or exiled to Siberia and the Soviets built one of their "fair" collective farms, moving their own people in to live out the lies of the Marxist manifesto.

Latvian descendants of those exiled and murdered families have gone to that pile of "pride" (the Soviets used it to intimidate members of the collective) and etched the surnames of their ancestors on the rocks. Eerie isn't strong enough of a word to describe the feeling of opression and evil surrounding that place.

In Moscow, my husband and I lived for two weeks with an elderly woman in one of those "fair" communist built apartments. One bedroom. One bathroom, a closet sized living room and even smaller kitchen. She raised five boys in that less than 400 sq ft space. She was a doctor. A profession that is revered in a capitalist society. A profession that expands our understanding of health and has prolonged our lives.

She lived in squallor.

We could smell the building before we climbed out of the van. Urine, feces, rotten meat and food. Dead animals in the alleys. Thousands of people crammed into a 1930s era building that has never been updated. Water and electricity are not dependable. Russians keep dozens of old milk jugs full of water for those times when the system goes down for days at a time. They reuse gray water from cleaning. Buckets full of black, dirty water that can be several months old, sit in closets next to ratty brooms.

This is POST Soviet era - the Russians think their lives have improved since then because they don't have to wait eight hours in a bread line only to find out there's no more bread.

(Sorry, my italics won't go off - it's a blogger problem)

This is the "fair" quality of life folks like Obama and our Democrat congress want for America. Even Bush is being snockered into allowing our economy to be bought out globally.

About Obama. Consider this. The mainstream media is NOT reporting this (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NY Times...)

BARAK OBAMA CANNOT PROVE HE WAS BORN IN AMERICA. It's against our constitution for someone not born in the US to become president. That issue came up with Arnold a few years back. He was born in Austria.

Click on the link and read about it. There are seveal sources on this. Obama has not, will not and cannot produce a valid birth certificate!

Records are popping up that he was born in Kenya.

Christians who are familiar with end-times theology are on the edge of their seats. Today, that "one-world" economy may be born. The book of Revelation spells it out in clear detail.

Really, the only thing left to occur before the rapture of Christ followers is the construction of the thrid temple in Jerusalem. We are in the midst of Jewish holidays at this very moment. Who knows what can happen?

We don't know when Jesus will return. Only God the Father knows, but the New Testament makes it clear that signs will be given. We are to be on watch as a bride waits for her groom.

Check out this sermon (Sept 28) by Pastor Jim Walters (Bear Valley Church, Lakewood, CO). He talks about rare combination of lunar and solar eclipses that fall on significant dates.

Most interesting, these planetary phenomena are not related to the rapture, rather could be related to the second comming of Christ (after the tribulation which IF the upcoming eclipses were the signs - the rapture could occur any time in the next week or so, mathmatically) ... or not.

Mark Biltz, the dude who did the research via NASA calanders and the Jewish calanders only asks "what if"? Don't freak and take it as "for sure".

Good news is that we don't need to by into the fear propaganda espoused by both political parties. Barak Obama and John McCain are not soverign. Honestly, it doesn't matter who wins or looses, God will have happen what will happen.

The apostles, during the reign of Nero, thought the end times were upon them. Maybe it was, then the faithful cried out. God extended grace? Who knows?

Christ Followers, please cry out on behalf of our nation - our world. Maybe God will extend grace a little longer, or He may come and sweep those of us with a personal relationship in Jesus Christ away.

Whatever happens, In Christ, we can't lose. We retain hope. In Christ.

America is a great country. We were willing, God used us and still can. As an American, I don't want my freedom snuffed out. I don't want my son to fear for his life because he sings "Jesus Loves Me."

At this rate, Booger will not be allowed to express his opinions in public forum. He will not be allowed to worship the One True God. His faith will be driven underground if things don't change.

Heck, our faith may be driven underground if Obama wins, or the "global economy" buys us out in the next few hours or days.

Who can save America? God. But He hears our cries and responds accordingly. Please, please intercede for this great nation!