How Does This Happen?...

I read an article today about some comments allegedly made by Gene Simmons. https://tv.yahoo.com/news/gene-simmons-tells-depressed-people-f-k-kill-154600164.html 
No two people handle suffering and hardship the same way. What devastates one may inspire another. So, how do we, as people, get to a point where we feel it is even remotely justified to say "Fuc# you, then kill yourself!" to someone who is truly hurting?

How can we look at the life of someone else and decide it's value? How do we tell someone that what they are feeling isn't real and that they should kill themselves? How do we even get to a place as a person where we see so little value in life?

Sometimes in our pursuit of education, of knowledge and of success we create for ourselves a definition of what we think will give our life meaning, purpose and value. We then look at the world though these lenses we have created and judge ourselves and others accordingly.

We need to be wary of this subtle change in our thinking. It is not what we "know", what public recognition we garner, or how much we "have", but rather what do for those in need, how we treat those who are hurting, and how our words and actions impact our fellow man, that makes up our character. What is truly valuable is not our portfolio, the house we live in our the car we drive, it is not our career or degrees, it is what is given from our heart. I'm not talking about money or things, but the words we speak to someone who is hurting, the shoulder we offer to share a burden, the hand we reach out with to help someone rise and take the next step, it is the labor of love we offer to those who cannot do on their own.

Please, if you are hurting, if you are suffering, even if you feel that there is no hope and you or those you love would be better off if you were dead, please... PLEASE reach out for help! You are NOT alone, there is hope, people DO care enough to see you though this and your life IS valuable!!! Here is the suicide prevention # 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

You may not know me, and I may not know you, but that does not mean I don't care about your suffering and your life and I believe that is true of more people than you would expect.

To those who have never struggled with depression, with physical pain, with abuse, or with any kind of suffering so intense that you have considered suicide, please be mindful of your words. I hope that Mr. Simmons example will serve to open people's eyes and hearts to what others may be privately enduring and encourage us to think about what we say and how it may impact others. Consider how you would feel about it if the person you care most about in this life were fighting this battle. Have compassion on your fellow man and reach out to those in need. You never know who is in desperate need of even a smile...

Let us think less of ourselves, and more of others.

Love and be loved, bless and be blessed, y'all!

I Stand at the Door...

You stand before two doors.

 

One stands tall and proud, it looks beautiful from the outside. It is quaint, adorned with flowers, and sure to contain the dreams that your heart desires. It promises joy if you simply open it and step through.

The other is smaller and appears old and worn. It hangs crooked on its hinge, there are no flowers, only moss and the decay of time. It is cracked and you can see nothing beyond it that would be of any interest to you.

You reach out for the first door. Your heart fills with the excitement of the promise of that which you desire. To your dismay the door is stuck; it will not budge. You feel panic rising in your chest, you feel your dreams begin to crumble. You push, pull, kick and fight to get the door open, but nothing works. You try hitting it, but this door is sturdy and does not give in to your will. You feel hot tears burning behind your eyelids as you stand eyes closed, fists clenched, the anger of disappointment and frustration raging within you. How could this happen? How could you be so close to all that would make you happy, and yet not be able to attain it? You begin to weep.

You hear a voice whisper to try the other door. You open your eyes and look to the other door, though it is ajar, what lies beyond it still appears grim and disappointing in comparison to the glorious hope that lies beyond the first door, if you could just get it open.

You have a choice to make. Do you continue your desperate search for a way through the door that leads to your dreams? Or do you take a chance on the second, unassuming door? You do not know if you will ever be able to open the first one, and though you may spend your entire life trying, you may never find success. However, the second door is already open and though what lies beyond it seems insignificant and unworthy of your time, it would at least be something.

As you draw near the second door you see a distant light straining to be seen through the dreary fog. With sad resignation, you place your hand on the door and give it a hesitant, dispassionate push. As the door slowly swings open you step into the unknown beyond the fog. Though the tiny light in the distance begins to grow, you stand still in the mist and the gloom of the utter despair that surrounds you and threatens to consume you. You close your eyes and again begin to weep; your soul desperately screaming "why?!" As you long for the realization of the glorious dreams that lie beyond the other door, you wonder if this emptiness is all there will ever be for you.

You stand there for quite some time begging this not to be your fate. You begin to feel a gentle warmth upon your face. You remain still, eyes closed, soaking in this new sensation. You feel the panic and dread in your heart begin to ease. You feel the burdens of failure and defeat begin to slowly lift their crushing weight from your shoulders. You stand a bit taller. You breathe deeply anticipating a sigh of resignation to burst forth from your lungs. Instead you are surprised by the splendid fragrance of sweet honeysuckle and fresh citrus blossoms on a warm spring day. As you exhale it is not the despondent resignation you expected to feel but rather a tiny spark of hope that is blossoming into the joy you were so certain only awaited you beyond the first door.

You open your eyes to what your mind can only describe as a glorious dream. Everything you thought you needed now seems so small and insignificant. Everything you have ever needed is right here, beyond the door you would never have chosen for yourself.  You blink to see if you are indeed awake. You turn and run to the door. You slowly ease yourself out and around the edge of the door to see if you were mistaken about which door you truly entered. The first door remains where it was, only now instead of standing tall, proud, and inviting it looms menacingly. The flowers that surrounded it are dead and a murky glow of disappointment oozes from beneath the door. The sight of all that you thought would make you happy, now rotten and decaying, causes you step back in astonishment. A sudden fear that this must now also be the case for what you have discovered beyond this small, unassuming door grips your heart and you turn in desperation to see that the joy you experienced is still there. It was waiting for you all along.

You begin to walk in this promise of new life that you have been given, and you no longer have any desire to look back. You find that not only joy and purpose awaited you beyond the door you had so deeply rejected, but a love you had never dreamed possible has wrapped its arms around you and vowed to never leave you no matter how rough the road ahead becomes.  You are finally where you truly belong…

Such is the case with life, friends. We seek so desperately for that which will fulfill us, often missing the mark entirely. We find heartache and disappointment at the end of our stubborn desire for what we want, for what we think is right for us. We stand and fight to get the door to “our dreams” open, when a much better one is waiting for us if we will only give it a chance. This is also true of our will vs God’s plan. His design, His hope for our future is so much more than we could ever conceive of on our own. There is more joy, more fulfillment, more love and more peace in walking with Him than I could have ever found in my own plans. I chose the small door and I would choose it again, if given the chance. Believe me, it is worth it! ^_^

Just thought I would share that with y’all. ;)

Two things in the physical that I have learned from dieting/fasting:

1. I CRAVE those stupid little goldfish crackers EVERY time!

Honestly, I get full on jealous of my kids. Picture gollum glaring angrily and covetously at the children whilst absently whispering "my precious" to the fish... Yeah, it's that bad. ;)

2. Don't continue to take the cayenne pepper gel caps.

Why would one take them in the first place you ask? Well, it's "supposed" to increase metabolism, which in my case is not a bad thing. ;) Never mind that I already put it in almost everything I cook... haha At any rate here's what happened:

So I'm living on veggies and fruit. I have horrid acid reflux any day of the week, for some reason when I'm drinking a LOT of water, and eating just fruit and veggies it becomes even more spectacular. Instead of a lazy thick lava flow meandering up and down my throat as usual, picture a massive fountain of record-hot lava spewing straight up into the air and you get the idea. So what do I do? Continue my vitamin consumption as normal.

By now my heartburn is in full gear and I've just had salad with hot peppers and a bottle of water. It is at this moment that I decide, for some reason, perhaps mental impairment due to the new herbivore diet, to take my vitamins. So a bottle of water and a hand full of vitamins later I feel a suspicious feeling in my esophagus that makes me think one of the vitamins may have scratched my throat on the way down. (If you have ever taken "horse pills" you may know the feeling I'm talking about.) Over the next few minutes the sensation becomes increasingly intense.

I am now fairly certain that the peppers were a bad idea as it must be the heartburn ramping up. However, it remains in one exact spot and intensifies to the point that I become concerned there is a hole now being burnt into my esophagus. So, I rush into the store frantically seeking relief from my friend/enemy (a story for another day) TUMS!!! All I can think at this point is "MUST.HAVE.TUMS!" My vision is starting to become blurry from the tears welling up in my eyes so I grab my bottle of water from my purse and chug it, knowing it will increase the "flow" of lava but it will at least temper it long enough for me to get the magical medicine that will swiftly put an end to my misery. To my surprise the 1/2 bottle of water suddenly relieved the pain.

It is in that moment I realize that the god-forsaken cayenne gelcap had gone down horizontally and lodged itself. As the gel dissolved the cayenne did it's best to kill me.

Needless to say, it made the reflux twice as bad the rest of the day.

Moral of the story: Don't take the gelcaps. If you do...drink a TON of extra water afterward....just to be sure. ;)

Two Chicks Walk Into a Walmart....

Question of the day: Again, this is NOT a judgmental question. It is one I often ponder. There is no condemnation, I'm just curious.) With all the fighting for marriage equality, the right for everyone to experience the "joy" of marriage....

Why do people *really* want to get married???

Marriage is a vow, a commitment before man and God that we **swear**, as in: oath, to uphold, even, no ESPECIALLY, through the worst, until death.

Yet divorce rates are through the roof. If we marry for "loooooveeeee" and love is unconditional, and we swear that we will stay, even when we don't want to, and that we put the needs of the other before our own, and we vow to do this until we die, why do so many marriages end? Is it because we don't really marry for love, is the love not unconditional as the vows suggest, or do we not really marry for life?

We got married because we didn't want to be alone.

Why did you get married?

What do people who marry for life do differently to make their marriage last?

I want to hear from y'all! ^_^

(*Disclaimer* Just because we are still married, does not mean we didn't knock on the door of divorce. It does not mean we did not lose the desire to try. It does not mean we did not have plenty of good reasons (according to society) to leave without blame. So don't think I mean this just to other people, it applies to us as well.)

Hey, If You Have All the Answers, I'd Like to Hear Them!

Okay...First things first: NO, this is NOT sarcastic and it is not baiting for an argument. (So, if anyone feels the need to be hostile, take it elsewhere.) I would just like to know...

To those of my family/friends that do not believe the Bible is the supreme authority on how we humans should live, (or are of the keep your beliefs to your self, other people's choices aren't your business, etc. persuasion); basically, if there is no universal, absolute moral truth:

1. How does one determine what is and is not acceptable behavior? (Where does one draw the line?)

2. What is the basis determining said moral/ethical/legal codes?

3. Who should determine such things and how do we apply them without "forcing said beliefs" on others?

I have never not believed, so I have never had to consider any such answer and this election got me wondering how people with different perspectives would have the nation create laws and enforce them.  

 

I ask this because I have been told and seen countless posts telling me to "keep my morals to myself" but that is in fact exactly what our laws are. Moral code of conduct. So, if the Bible is "out" what is our measuring stick?

Holy Flying Ape Crap, Batman!

It has been over a year since my last post! I am failing in my duty to waste your time and kill your brain cells. >.< I apologize for letting my responsibility slide. Let's see...what useless bit of drivel can I make you regret reading today?... I know! Let's talk about...your mother! I kid, what is there to say that hasn't already been said about her, eh? 

Moving on. I was out with the kids the other day and I saw some jackwagon with a poorly written sign. It wasn't your average protest sign pissing and whining about some self-centered tool's supposed "rights". It was a news of the century story! Apparently there is a murderous band of guns that have run amok killing people! I have to admit I was completely taken  aback. Why had I not heard about this? I mean ALL news simply must go through me!.. How could something as scientifically astounding as autonomous weaponry gone mad slip by without my having heard of it before now? Never mind the potential threat it may pose to my family!

So many questions flooded my mind... How on earth did they come into existence? Did they evolve? Did their molecules decide one day that some grudge against the organic life forms, called "humans", must be settled with bloodshed and thus began their spontaneous evolution from inanimate to living, breathing, thinking entities?! Can they mutate other guns with a touch, like the entity in the Dr. Who ep. “The Empty Child”; is it a viral change? Or...are they an alien life form from some other mysterious world? I don't know...the only-partially-informative-sign did not tell the whole story. This would require research and defensive preparations….

The first thing I did when I got home was make sure my guns were separated from their ammo, though the “news sign” did not specify that the guns had used bullets to kill their targets, I felt this was a prudent preventative measure. Next, I made sure they were all properly gagged, “locked” as we had called it before this new development, though I am not certain that they communicate via speech, they could be evolved enough to communicate with thought alone. This thought in turn brought up the question do they even have mouths? I don’t know, but the “lock” is securely in place, threaded in through the ejection port and out the magazine well. Which parts of a living gun’s anatomy that would be are unknown to me. (That too would require research and I wondered if any in-depth studies had been conducted on this newly discovered species yet.) I then “bound” my gagged potential terrorists in separate lock boxes to ensure that they could not assist each other in an escape effort.

Upon completing my preventative defense preparations I grabbed some caffeine and sat down at my laptop to begin research and as I did I wondered briefly if it too may evolve one day and joined by others of it’s kind go on a mad killing spree…but I had no time to consider the endless list of possible species development at the time, I had to learn more about this formidable new threat!

What I learned was indeed alarming! Not only are these “killer guns” not autonomous, intelligent or murderous in nature, there is not even one single documented case of a “living” gun. This news-reporting buffoon on the street corner was not only misinformed but apparently lacked the intellect to even verify that this murderous-band-of-firearms tale bore any semblance of truth! I have heard of exaggeration, but to twist fact into such absurd fiction and then claim it as truth is a clear indication of the extreme lack of good-judgment and integrity.

This news prompted me to post a "funny" photo on facebook in which a protester, of the whining variety, is holding a sign that reads "Gun sellers are accomplices of crimes”, to illustrate the point of my findings. A gun seller is no more an accomplice, (to be an accomplice requires knowledge of the intended crime so that one might encourage or help the perpetrator actually commit the crime), than a gun is a murderer. (To be a murderer one must have “malice aforethought” or “intent” to kill (murder) “another human being”, therefore as the gun is not a “human being” and (as far as is known) has no ability to think, thus no “aforethought” it cannot be a murderer, or killer: the oft used synonym.)

There are two lessons from this: 1. Truth should be a mandate of news reporting, but it is not. 2. Therefore, always research what you read/hear/see reported, NEVER blindly take the information at face value. You have a brain, use it. (See that, not one, but TWO lessons! This was not a complete waste of time after all… For that I apologize.)

Until next time monkeys…

Serious Again: We are NOT called to be timid!

Lately I find myself wanting to scream at the top of my lungs something that is weighing so heavily on my heart of late.

Everyone talks about what we are called to do and not do in Christ, and in recent years the message has become condensed into that of Love, Forgiveness and Acceptance, but brothers and sisters I am here to tell you, that is not the whole story!!! For our God IS a jealous God (Ex 20:5, 2 Cor 11:2), and a God of Wrath (Rom 1:18, Rev 16:19)! YES He absolutely loves us, and if we seek forgiveness with REPENTANT hearts, it is ours. BUT if we choose sin over OBEDIENCE, silence over BOLDNESS, and deceit over TRUTH, then we are NOT following the call the that Christ issued!

Yes, we are commanded not to judge a person's heart, as only the Father in Heaven knows the secrets of man's heart, BUT we ARE called to judge actions, practices, and doctrines so that we will not be led astray and given to deceit (2 Cor 4:2, Eph 5:6, 2 Tim 3:13). In order to determine what is right and wrong, we must be in scripture. We were given the word of God as a guide to our thoughts, behaviors, and actions and as a measurement for separating truth from lies (Ps 119:105, 1 Pet 1:23, Heb 4:12). We have been warned to guard against deceit, against that which leads His children astray, and against sinful behaviors. (Jude 3-22, Acts 20:24, Acts 20:28-30) If we do not speak the truth against such things then by our actions (silence) we are CONDONING those things which are not in keeping with the word of God, and for every person we either purposefully or by omission lead astray, and every stumbling block we lay or allow to remain unhindered in the path of another, shall have to answer for to our Father in Heaven on the day of our Judgement.

Jesus did not preach quietly or in fear of His safety, social status, or loss of riches. He spoke boldly and with confidence! It is through the Holy Spirit, with the example of Christ and armed with the word of God that we are to also boldly bring the truth to the world, and help our brothers and sisters in Christ in our walk and aid each other should we stumble. "And He Himself game some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all thing into Him who is the head -- Christ-- from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." - Eph 4:11-16 Every day we are to put on the armor of God to protect us, equip us for spiritual battle, and to guide us in His wisdom and will. (Eph 6:10-18)

Our purpose in Christ is not to seek popularity or esteem in the world, but to share the truth; not to cling to this life forsaking the commands of our Father, but to submit to His will with confidence, peace and joy in our hearts through faith in Him!

Be gone you blue screen spawn of Satan!

Blue screens are the devil.

Not to rip off Waterboy...but they are. 

 If you have ever encountered one then you already know this. If you have not...be on your guard, the blue screen is lurking behind your seemingly innocent monitor just waiting for its chance to attack. 

You will be sitting there, minding your own business when BAM out of nowhere this horrid evil beast jumps out at you, not dissimilar to the demon in that possessed maze game that was taking over the internet several years ago. (You know the one I’m talking about. No doubt one of your “friends” sent you a link to this “fun game”, accompanied by some form of bragging about how far they got in it, in which you are supposed to navigate an increasingly narrower maze as quickly as possible without touching the edge, for if you do you are sent back to the beginning to start over. So after a misstep or two you are now concentrating intensely on not making a mistake again when suddenly a horrid demon jumps out at you screeching in some ungodly tone, causing you to lose your composure completely and revert to some primal state that can only be described as a combination of sheer terror and complete confusion resulting in girlish screams and possible loss of control of your bodily functions. For many of you these same “friends” took much pleasure in planning this attack and even went to great lengths to make a video record of this most humiliating moment to share with the world via “youtube”, a site that was seemingly created for the purpose of exploiting the humiliation of such unsuspecting victims. )

But I digress; this story is about the evil blue screen. So it goes something like this: One minute you are doing your work or peacefully browsing the internet and the next thing you know you are staring evil in the eye. Not only does this thing invade your personal space without warning or invitation, but it then proceeds to sabotage you. In some language you don’t comprehend it taunts you, and then your screen goes blank. Your screams of terror can be heard from outer space. It begins as shock, eases its way into panic, then grief as the realization that whatever you were working on is lost, with rage rounding the corner not far behind. To complicate matters further it hides behind numerous “possible causes” so as to steal your time as greedily as a sugar fiend guzzles sweets. If you know a bit about the machine you were operating you will probably invest a fair amount of additional time in researching and through much trial and error attempt to restore order and some sense of reassurance that you will not experience such horror again. If you do not know anything about how the machine works and are just using it in much the way the majority of “licensed” people operate cars, (minimal knowledge required), then you will likely end up calling a “geek” to come to your rescue. This option could result in a “nominal” financial investment, which this blue screen devil no doubt revels in. The ultimate joy for this beast is the loss of function of the machine resulting in the loss of your horde of data, usually in the form of documents, photos and music, that you no doubt hold dear.

Why am I telling you all this? Mostly for the perverse pleasure of knowing that you will now be worried about when and where this thing will sneak up on you, possibly losing sleep over it…You know the saying… Misery loves company. 

I’m just sayin’, watch your back, or monitor…either way.