This is my neighbor’s pug, they just moved in, as if to taunt me, coz i want a pug sooo bad. So here’s my wordless prayer, ‘i want one tooooooo’

Visit other WW’ers here

Yes, I’m a Christian, but that doesn’t mean my mind is not open to alternative treatments.. I love EFT and BSFF, stuff like that. Anyway, I thought I would try self hypnosis and then getting my hubby to read me stuff i had written. The first time he read it, you could say I wasn’t in a trance, hehe. All I did was argue with him in my mind. ‘You’ll never smoke again’… me: eeeyeah right, watch me! stuff like that…

but the second time i was just sort of listening instead of arguing with him, and it was about stuff like cooking and cleaning, stuff i never do basically…

So since this time I have done the dishes TWICE simply because I wanted it clean!! but I must admit that it may have backfired a bit, in that a mess may drive me nuts now, but i still feel no desire to do anything about it so in the end, i just added to the list of things that drive me nuts.. i’m not sure if i should try the hypnosis thing again…

This is how I conquered the Lomo effect in Photoshop, it’s a combination of a couple other people’s tutorials and an idea of my own which I’ll tell you right up front. I googled for two days trying to find a Lomo filter that I liked that made EVERY picture look good, and found that they turned alot of pictures whacky colors or too light or too harsh and such. So my idea is not a one click wonder, but rather a two step process that takes a little bit more work for each picture. first of all you want to make sure your ruler is set on percentage so that this will work for different size photos.. go to (edit/preferences/units and rulers) and set rulers to percent. *note* if you are using an indexed color picture change it to RGB.

Step 1.
click on (Image/adjustment/levels) and adjust the arrows until you like it… do this yourself for each and every photograph until the colors pop out with a richness you like. this is basically my secret, seperating the color levels adjustment from the automation process like this..

Step 2.
Go to the Actions tab on the right and click the little arrow to the right and ‘new action’ and start recording. Name the action ‘lomo’ or something meaningful like that.

1. The first thing you want to do is create the vignette that Lomos are known for. We’ll achieve this by doing a freehand circle lasso around the photo. It doesn’t need to be perfect, and to prevent hard edges, we’ll set the feather to 100 px before drawing the circle.

2. Once you have set the feather and drawn the circle, invert your selection. (Select/Inverse)

3. Create a new layer. (layer/new) name it ‘black’ to be simple about it. switch your foreground and background colors to black and white.

4. Make sure you’re working on your new blank layer and use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the layer with black.

5. Deselect everything and duplicate the black layer. (right click on the layer down on the right menu and select ‘duplicate layer’) Change the ‘blend mode’ on one of the black layers to “Overlay” and the other one to “Multiply”. (right click, blending options/blend mode) put the multiplied layer on top of the stack, and the overlayed layer right underneath. Adjust the opacity on these layers as you see fit.

6. Create a new layer. Name it ‘white’. switch your forground and background colors. Select the gradient tool (it might be hiding under the Paint Bucket tool). In the options bar up top, select “Radial Gradient” (fuzzy bubbley looking one) and make sure that you have ‘Foreground to Transparent’ set as your gradient type. you should have a white gradient that gives way to transparency.

7. Click in the middle of your photograph and drag a straight line to the furthest edge of the canvas. This will throw down a round white gradient right on top of everything. make sure this layer is on top, if it’s not, just drag it up on the right hand layers menu.

8. Change the blend mode for your new white layer to “Overlay”,(right click/blending options/blend mode) and bring the opacity down to 25 percent or so, or whatever you think looks best, could be more…

9. press the square at the bottom left of the actions tab to stop recording and now you have a set of lomo actions that you can use repeatedly. you just have to do the levels to get lomo color for each photograph, then hit your lomo action bar that has the name ‘lomo’ if that’s what you called it, and press the play arrow underneath.

i also post adjust my black layers and white layer, to darken them or lighten them for each photograph as well.. anyway, hope this helps y’all.. happy lomoing!!

credits and downloadable actions for what I just said are in the read more section, but remember you have to do the color levels yourself, and I have made the black vignette and white layer fairly light and usually manually adjust later…
(more…)

Terribly sorry to all the THOUSANDS of people.. gak.. that were using my radio blog, not so much sorry to the people who were linking to it..hehe… it has been sucking up my bandwidth to the tune of a gig a day.. i have had to increase my web package once already but this time i’m just tearing the durned thing out of there.. now my site will be some what less entertaining alas..

butterflies.. how are you out there? I was thinking about you the other day, my hubby was saying we should move to new zealand he’s about to be out of work on Jun 16.. times they are a changin’.. don’t know what we are going to do.. but God has given me peace..

well I chickened out and downgraded my website package to 500 meg. haha.. from 3 gig to 500 meg, but that’s ok.. at least I still have it all in place.. a friend of mine offered to help me, but i didn’t want to leach off of her unless I absolutely had to, take up her webspace.. so I’m still here!
and I will be officially trying to see if i can make money from my new business venture on sunday, so say a little prayer for me.

I really don’t know what I will be.. but maybe some things I’m starting to know what I want, like I would like to do something I actually LIKE to do for a living, and if I ever have a friend again it will be one where I can talk about MY freakin’ problems over coffee not just listen to THEM yammer on for a jillion years. And I want to be a Jesus freak not just a mediocre Christian. And I don’t want to be on a diet for the rest of my life, obsessed with food. I want to live in a place where the people are real, but it’s still got tons of shopping, and the weather has to be reasonable. I would like to own a little house one day, but not too little. And it goes without saying that I want to be healed, whole and happy. These are mostly wishes that are between me and God. For instance I don’t wish for my husband or family to love me more because that would be.. well I don’t know what that would be. ok, I wish it.
I want to be peaceful so that I don’t need vices. I want the personality that God has planned for me, none of this bad girl crap. I want to fill my days with productivity that pleases God and at the same time pleases me. I want a business, not a job. Tho if the right job came along, that might be nice too, but only as a desperate measure. I want one of those electric scooters that look like a vespa and travel in the bicycle lane. I want a comfier bed. speaking of which, I’m going to sleep now.

Sometimes I have no passion for anything but passion. I have only 3 things. I love God, I trust Jesus, and He heals me. Things may be totally whacked out in all appearances, but I have those truths that stand like stonehenge in the middle of a desert. Perhaps the greatest of those truths is that I trust Jesus. The emotion of love can waver and I can only take it as an accomplished fact because God is so lovable. And the fact that Jesus heals me COMES from the trust. Didn’t Jesus walk around saying ‘your faith has made you well’.. I think my trust in Jesus is the greatest of the three. How do I trust in Him? As my saviour.. from everything bad.. as my healer from all ills.. as my comfort, my shelter, my strong tower.. the lover of my soul, my best friend. How do I trust my Jesus who has taken up residence in me, to become one with me and make me like Him.. I trust Him with my everything. Where do those old thoughts come from? that God is far away, and blesses irregularly, rarely.. Oh I don’t know.. I want those thoughts gone. I give myself to Jesus, mighty God. the bright morning star, beautiful, God among us. Things don’t look good but that doesn’t matter, because it is written ‘let the weak say ‘I am strong”.. I don’t know what to do, I’m at a loss without God stepping in. I have to trust Him to step in, and if I don’t trust Him right then I have to trust Him to make me right. This is what it is to be held. what’s that song? to have the sacred torn from your life, and you survive. oh that’s funny, i was writing about it and it just came on. I’m listening to it now. Sometimes you have been suffering for so long you think it would be atypical or strange, or fearful for God to change it, heal it. But God will take you to wonderful places even if you are afraid. Because there are only wonderful things to be gotten from God. He’s all good, all great, all wonderous. Who cares about childhood catholic thoughts about God being afar off and stern.. we only care about the revelation that God himself has given us, about His love and sweetness. oh His sweetness, it makes me want to cry. I wish we could get closer to God. I wish there wasn’t the barrier of self. The barrier of worldliness. I only wish to be with God. what’s that song from ‘love actually’? ‘All I want for Christmas.. is You.. make my wish come true.. all I want for Christmas is You..’ I would like to sing that song to God and have Him grant me my wish, to witness His beauty every day, to feel His love always, to live in His mighty power. I happen to be slightly drunk at the moment.. one would think that drunkeness would take one AWAY from God, but I’m sitting here pining for closeness to Him. Pining for a life lived at one with His love. I’m feeling schmoozy romantic for God; He’s all I want. So I’m writing this lovey dovey blog post to Him in hopes that He’ll read it and take pity on me. Take pity on a heart that beats only for Him. I’m a shell without Him, He’s my everything. I wish I could have written one of the love letters in the bible, but I don’t have the words. 26 letters is all I got, to tell you how I feel about you, I try to express with adjectives of thankfulness.. that’s a cute song too.. How can we sing to God when we can’t hold a tune? How can I write a poem when I don’t understand iambic pentamater? What can I do for You God to give You a little sugar? I love You God, I thank You Jesus for coming down to save us, for dying, for taking on our sin.. You did it all, for us.. I am what You make me. I owe it all to You. How can I ever give anything to you? I want to be your friend, you know, all squinchy like moses, so that you would like my friendship.. that way I would be giving my friendship to You and You would like it. Dear God, hear my prayer, feel my longing for you, bless me, favor me, have mercy on me, bow down and meet me here. I know I’m not a good Christian, but love me anyway. Save me in spite of worst case scenario. Because You are a great a wonderful God, so kind and tender. Hear me Oh God, I love You so, I need You so, don’t deny me You presence in my life, always. Come to me, sweet Lord. I will gladly give up the worldly self to be with You.

Sometimes when the emeny just comes on like a flood you have to just throw yourself at God an rest in Him. I went to bed at 8:30 last night and just wouldn’t move when God gave me His peace. I’m up at 3:00 am, now I have to take my meds and go to bed. but I’m just relaxing here and trying to hang on to the peace. I trust that God will heal me and take me into a wonderful life with Him. why? Because He said so. Sometimes I think it’s not happening because I don’t have enuff faith or some such, but I trust God in spite of that, because He promised. I may be scared, I may be double minded, but God promised, and His promises are yes and amen. He will take away the fear and double mindedness. He is going to heal me and make me safe, and make my dreams come true. I trust God. It may take Him a while, but He’s workin’!

I had to go for a job interview yesterday. I was freaking out totally with a huge ‘I CAN’T, I DON’T WANT TO!’.. and I was telling hubby I was praying for God to take that away, and hubby says ‘it doesn’t work like that, get ahold of yerself’.. I said ‘it DOES SO work like that! I’m totally dependent on God!’.. and hubby had to watch God come thru for me and enable me, so he had to admit he was wrong, hehe. So by the time the interview came around I was thinkin’ ‘I can do this, no problem’.. ha! why? Coz of God! I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me. God even healed me of something that would have prevented me from doing it, like the night before the interview, a gentle healing. I was watching a sermon on sunday by this woman who yells her sermons passionately, and she was saying ‘if what you are dreamin’ ain’t IMPOSSIBLE for you, then you ain’t dreamin’ right’.. I was thinking that was about right, coz I was putting out these job applications by faith! It was totally impossible and dependent on God. But God came through! He is so awesome and takes such good care of me in such a glorious manner! I’m so happy because I know that God will take care of me and enable me. I have felt so unable for so long but we’ll see what God has to say about THAT!

By the way, God was with me thru the LA trip even tho I was a total flibbertyjibbet on camera and will probably end up on the cutting room floor. I almost lost my boarding passes on the way back, but other than that I didn’t do anything too messed up. I had fun and it was so nice to meet my ‘diet’ friends. It was a real nice way to celebrate getting to goal. Even tho I’m quite a bit over goal weight right now hehe my bad.

My God is an awesome God He reigns. I’m so happy to be in His hands. Sometimes I wonder why things take so long, or I get frustrated that faith is a seed that has to grow, or that I have to WALK into the promised land.. sometimes I wish the promised land would just fall at my feet. But I think God gets frustrated right along with ya haha.. He yelled at me once to trust in Him. Like things would be moving on alot faster if I wasn’t such a booger head. aaah well, I think eventually a Christian should be able to leave fear as a thing of the past, and rest in God’s care. How many times did Jesus say ‘fear not!’.. alot o’ times I think. Anyway, I’m off to go and sit in God’s lap for a while.. talk to y’all later.

I’m getting real nervous about this trip to LA.. A good part of me is like grrr arrgh, I’m yer huckleberry! yeehaa! bring it on! coz I am walkin’ into the promised land with God and I’m all hyped up about that.. but there’s the other part of me that has been in the wilderness for a long time and wonders what the heck I think I’m doing!! I’m a home body! I’m unable.
I want to be able to say to God ‘Here I am, use me!’ and go to LA with that spirit. Knowing that He will meet me with His back up. I’m growing more excited than scared even as I type this.. the strength of the Lord is growing in me.

it promises to be a good day.. of course i think every day these days promises to be a good day. i have chat friends, where i call them ‘the bad news bears’ where they come online and tell me all the bad news of whatever is happening in their life. i have a secret to leading a good life. if you don’t let yourself become a bad news bear, then you will find that you will look back on yesterday, last week, last year and only remember all the good news you told and you will say ‘hey i really have a wonderful life’.. and trust me, this works even when ACUTE suffering gets in the way. even acute suffering will be like when a woman has a baby, you won’t remember it if you do a norman cousins thing and laugh and tell jokes or something while it’s happening, you will remember the jokes.. just thought i would share this with y’all.. i’ve had 7 years of acute suffering, but since i only talked about it a few times, that’s the only reason i remember it is those few times i threw in the towel and COMPLAINED.. the rest of the years i only remember the joy of the Lord.. i really have a wonderful life.. i’m not saying that i’m stronger or better than ‘them’.. i’m just saying that i don’t actually have the ability to concentrate on the bad.. coz when i do, my world comes crashing down.. so what i’m telling you here is just my observations on what happens why you concentrate on the good. i’m certainly not stronger and it’s by the grace of God that i don’t have MORE days where i break down and complain. But i take the good days God gives me where I can get ‘em.. and it’s all relative. on my ‘good’ days i’m certainly not ‘cured’ and i could still choose to say bad things, but perish the thought! i would rather say ‘i had a great day! i found a wool mattress topper at half the price, comfy bed!’, or whatever else i can think of that’s of good report. and tomorrow and tomorrow when i look back it will be remembered as the day i made my bed comfy, not as ‘the bad day of whatever is wrong with me, yadda yadda’.. this is the secret of how to build a great life.

I won a free trip to LA to be in an infomercial for the weight loss plan I used. I hope they don’t use that nasty before shot of me in my bathing suit lol.. they prolly will. Oh well, I will prolly end up on the cutting room floor, on accounta they don’t know I’m weird It’s very exciting, tho I’m nervous about travelling alone in the states. I’ve never been to Los Angeles. I have a stop over in vegas too, will have to do some gambling in the airport lol.. just kidding, I will prolly be quaking with fear by gate B. I’m feeling so far from God these days with all the worldly stuff going on, the visitors, now this trip.. I’m not doing my usual just concentrating on God stuff.. I wonder what God is thinking about me. I wonder if He is shoving me out into the world and approves, or if He is getting mad at me. He promised me a close relationship with Him, so I’ll just have to trust Him..

We have out of town visitors. My hubby’s sister, and her hubby are in from back home. We’re having a grand ol’ time. I tried to take Jesus with me the whole night, it’s sort of a new thing I’m trying to do.. believe that Jesus is ‘easy’.. You know what I mean? In the bible it says that Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden is light.. But I have been working my butt off to be a Christian and haven’t believed that Jesus is easy. I don’t think I was very successful tonight and really only succeeded in forgetting about Jesus alot of the time lol. which is easy, but I don’t think that’s really what Jesus meant. since we are supposed to ‘abide’ in Him. Tho I do have a pleasant over all feeling of God’s healing presence upon me these days that makes it hard to forget about Him entirely. I am in a state of gratitude. My state of being is so peaceful that I have to take note of it and cry out to the Lord every now and then, thank You! Spending a pleasant evening with visitors talking amicably about not much of anything, smiling, laughing, feeling good.. others might take this for granted.. I DO NOT.. Thank You God! Jesus said ‘with out Me you can do nothing’.. non-Christians don’t get to find this out because they live by God’s grace.. and even worldly Christians don’t get to find this out.. but smitten Christians get to find out that they are utterly and completely dependant on God for their ALL. All their old ways of doing things stop working for them and they find new troubles in everything they used to do, new things to cry out to God about, they reach the end of their rope repeatedly, in all endeavors, and God is mighty to save. It might seem frustrating at first, but I’m sure that there’s just the transitional period, while you are being trained to do things God’s way, until you are controled by the Holy Spirit. Oh what a happy to look forward to.. I will try to do better tomorrow..

Well today I feel so good in God, like He is following me through my day, like I don’t have to strain myself to seek Him. The movie ‘twister’ is on the country music station in a while. I put it on the station to wait for it and I’m watching the singers sing their songs and I feel that God is watching the singers with me and He will watch ‘twister’ with me. I feel lovely. There’s a scripture that tells us that if we are going to work, work to enter into rest with the Lord. Maybe that’s what all my working has been about then aye? So that I can have days like today where I can just be carried around in His arms. I want to always be in His company, in His presence. I dearly hope that my being a Jesus freak will pay off with Him blessing me that way. With His presence. His beauty.

Do you remember the story of humpty dumpty? he sat on a wall, humpty dumpty had a great fall. all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put humpty back together again. But what they never told you is the implied truth that only God can put humpty back together again, and God WILL put him back together. can i get a witness? who is the hero in all our personal fairy tales we tell in our head? JESUS, that’s who, He’s the one who rides in on a white horse and saves us from all bad things. Jesus, my hero, my God and my Saviour, I love You today tomorrow and forever, according to Your grace.

I’m thinking about husbands. butterflies husband is going soon and I was thinking how strong she is. I know that I couldn’t take that and be strong like her, well I was saying in a comment that it had to be God.. Sometimes I get so mad at my hubby, for things like sleeping his durned life away or some such thing. But I’m looking at him sleeping on the couch right now and I’m so glad that HE’S HERE!! Sleeping his eighteenth hour of the day or how ever long he’s been sleeping because I didn’t wake him up today. If he wants to sleep his life away I’m glad that he’s alive to do it with me. Some people call sleep ‘the little death’, but I’m here to tell ya that sleep is not death because you get to come back. My husband may be gone for eighteen hours and counting today, but he will be back. Some people are not so lucky.

Well God has delivered me from smoking! That viscious, demonic, awful smoking habit I had. I’m just left with a few ‘normal’ smoking withdrawal pangs, like I remember from when I was young and quitting smoking, nothing serious. Just sorta crave a cigarette and get cranky. No searing pain from hell. I cut a nicotine patch into quarters yesterday and put on a fourth of a patch just to get a little bit of help. I also did that ’smoke away’ kit this week. Yesterday’s wee patch is still on my shoulder. I didn’t put another patch on today. We’ll see how I hold up. If it’s a problem maybe I will put on an eighth of a patch today and no patch tomorrow. Anyway, it’s good to be free! God is soooooooo good to me! Bless the Lord oh my soul and forget not all His benefits, Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases!

By grace you have been saved, not of yourselves.. sometimes it’s hard not to end up in the ditch on the other side of the road when it comes to a revelation on grace. You can end up not doing ANYTHING, or worse, you can end up sinning. I was seeking God this morning because I have been doing nothing for a while now lol being busy being saved by grace and I was feeling further and further from God. So God had to show me that seeking Him wasn’t ‘work’.. He gave me a beautiful feeling of His peaceful presence while I was seeking. Just so that I realized that dwelling in His secret place wasn’t hard work or anything. It’s eight o’clock in the evening now and His beauty is still upon me and I’m taking it as a promise of things to come in my journey towards oneness with God. It’s right that we should have to seek God, that we should always have to choose Him. I’m not sure why I say that exactly, but I’m sure that it’s right. It’s just that we should always be showing our love for Him in that way, always be trying to be good and worshiping. Just because God wants us to love and choose Him. Not just once, but always. Just like marriage, that old sermon, a fave by preachers, you don’t just tell your spouse ‘I love you’ once when you get married and then never again, supposing that they know it now. You tell them constantly, because they need to hear it constantly. So does God. It’s not that there is a danger of us changing our mind… even tho sometimes there actually is that danger. But that’s not the point, it’s that love is a living active thing, a thing that needs to be pushed along and lived in the now. So we seek God all the time, and sweetly bow our heads and say ‘I love You’ today, forever and always.

Well I’m starting on my next quilt.. A much more ambitious project, in that I bought TWO kits to make the quilt twice the size, so it can go on our bed. I must say I’m working a little slower on it. tho you would think I would be working faster as this is my fourth day without smoking and I should be accomplishing more. But I’m just so relaxed, I do believe that Jesus is giving my soul rest. You can see pictures of my completed quilt, the last one i was working on, in my photoblog .. I should probably quilt today, but I got up at 5:30 am! So I’m a little tired. I’ll probably quilt anyway.

i’m making the most lovely quilt. i have the top done, i’ve just cut the borders.. i’m about to iron down the seams, then sew on the borders, then it’s a grueling evening of pinning the the top to the stuffing and the backing… oh yeah i guess i have to cut the backing yet.. i’ll cut the backing and sew it together after i sew the borders on.. THEN it’s pinning time. I loathe that part. you have to spread it out on the floor and try and keep the dog off of it for hours while you kill your knees and your back putting a zillion safety pins in it. I wish my husband was home to feel sorry for me while i do it haha. I do like being a martyr. I took the quilt top into the fabric store to get advice on how much material to buy for borders and backing and the woman who wasn’t a quilter said to the woman who was, ‘look at that! could i make something like that??’ she just loved my quilt it’s so fun and funky. i am loving it too. i’m so glad i got off my butt and started working on it. I think Jesus is liking it too.

I just found out the secret of the unpardonable sin, and man am I pissed off. I found out that the only blasphemy is in rejecting God and the works of God of course.. and if you came to God that of course you would be forgiven.. it’s unpardonable if you reject God period. I’ve been terrorized with the unpardonable sin for so long, thinking it was saying bad words to the Holy Spirit, man am I angry at demons! I guess it’s all part and parcel with ‘you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free’.. The thing about God’s truth is that it’s always beautiful and freeing I think, because God IS love. It just makes you wonder how much crap you are falling for in your head that’s making you miserable.. doesn’t it?

faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. it’s a substance, that’s like saying it’s the actual thing. it’s the thing God gives you to move you into the power. it’s your half of the power, so it is like the power. it’s agreement with God, God’s promises are yes and amen, and you say yes and amen too. Jesus is the author and finisher and perfector of our faith, it’s not you who live, but Christ who lives in you, so don’t be scared that you have to manufacture it all on your own. It’s the way God works, it’s the way we hook up our ways with God’s power. The just shall live by faith. It’s a total submission of our wills to Him. ‘How shall we work the works of God?’ ..’These are the works of God, that you believe on Him whom He sent’.. fight the good fight of faith! by His stripes you are healed! who can believe this report?? oh who can believe?

Jesus came to give life and life more abundantly. I may have been chasing God too much. I don’t know if that’s possible or not, but maybe we are to put God FIRST and then other things second, not put God first and ONLY.. Does that make sense? I may be making a mistake, I’m not sure though. It says to love the Lord your God with all your heart mind understanding etc, but are you supposed to love Him with all your time? if you know what I mean? are you not supposed to do other things? My husband is mad at me for listening to tapes all the time, and I must confess I’m getting a little tired. So I think I’m doing something wrong. I don’t want to get ‘religious’ or whipped. I know that there is nowhere else to go but to God, and as the disciples said ‘only you have the words of life Master’.. but I’m thinking that only doing that all day and all night might not be the right thing to do. The disciples spent 24/7 with Jesus.. I wonder if Jesus taught them all day and all night.. I wonder if that is the way.. Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light.. I think I’m throttling myself. I’m hungry for the word, but there’s only so much a person can do. I just think I’m doing this wrong, because Jesus is easy and joyful and beautiful. I don’t want to become a pharisee haha..

Do you ever watch people in ‘the world’ trying to be happy or thinking they are happy, with positive affirmations or sitcoms, and get a strangled feeling in your throat, a panicky vision of hell to come or something like that.. I try to think ‘oh God is working on them, they are safe and happy, God will come to save them just like He did me’.. I try to assumed it’s a lie of the devil that these people are lost. Because it’s not God’s will that any should perish. I think there’s a sympathy for people that need God, and there’s that panic that I’m not sure is right, because I think God will save people. Jesus said ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light’ but that message gets a tad mixed up, and Christianity is not the popular way because of that. Maybe some people get saved near death, maybe some people AFTER death, coz there is that scripture that says the dead will hear His voice and if they listen will be saved. I’m not sure if I’m misinterpretting that or not. But I would like to think I’m not and people have a chance to choose God after death and the veil of lies is lifted off of their minds. Anyway, I don’t like to think of people as lost causes, because I figure God can do His will. The bible does say many are called but few are chosen, but I guess that means that God chooses people who choose Him. but I tell ya, God is merciful, if you take one step toward Him, He takes 10 billion toward you. Anyway, I am choosing to think that God will save people.

I’m so happy. Jesus is easy and beautiful and I seek Him with all my heart. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Oh what a promise! Who the Son sets free is free indeed. I can’t get enuff. I’m impatient for the word. God has caught me up. It’s God that worketh in me both to will and to do His good pleasure. Imagine, it’s for His pleasure! Like Jesus said He did it for the joy set before Him. Alot of the time the enemy blinds minds and makes the bible seem like a foreboding negative thing.. but God is full of joy and pleasure! It even says in the bible that it pleased God to bruise Jesus.. because He knew that by His stripes we were healed.. I imagine, because He knew that the kingdom of darkness fell.. Oh I pray to understand God and His kingdom! To know the beauty of serving Jesus..

The unpardonable sin must be something like hating the spirit of God. One would be utterly lost I guess in order to do that. The kingdom of darkness is always trying in this area. But God is gentle with us and knows our heart does not hate Him. Tho I think the negativity might grieve the Holy Spirit after a while, because He wants to be loved and not feared in that way that makes for negativity. And the fear of the unpardonable sin might keep us from turning to the Holy Spirit, and we are meant to commune with Him. It’s strange that when Jesus told of the unpardonable sin, the people it was meant for probably didn’t care, and the rest of us live in eternal panic. I once read the bible from cover to cover when I was about 16, just to say that I had, and the only thing that I got out of it was a terror of the unpardonable sin. Because I knew the way that brains worked, the thing you are terrified the most of and all that. Not because you wanted it, or meant it, but because you feared it so. If I had never heard of such a thing of course it would never have been on my mind, because who would ever say anything against God?? or hate God?? The Holy Spirit is nothing but good. But ever since reading about the unpardonable sin, I have lived in terror. I know other people do too.. But know that God knows your heart, and He knows that you don’t hate Him, and even if your mind plays tricks on you, that’s not what God sees..

I think the world needs to be saved. We have our Saviour, He’s done the work. More effective workers are needed. Preachers only preach to other Christians, which is of course needed for the Christian life, so that they can work out their salvation with fear and trembling. But when they go out into the field they are met with animonsity mostly. The message of how beautiful God is is met with anger and resentment. It says in the bible that the god of this world has blinded their minds. We were all in that position once and know that God can save us from it. So we need GOD-effective workers in the field. Teachers that can reveal truth with God’s power behind them, to open the eyes of the understanding in the person hearing. Pray the Lord of the harvest, to send workers.

Psalm 91
HE WHO dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand].

I was blessed by this verse today while joyce meyer was teaching. She said that we would remain stable and it took me a while to find that, it’s in the amplified version. But I experienced this strength in my body when she said it, and I wondered about it.. So I went searching it out. God was blessing it and confirming the scripture about spending time with Him, dwelling in His secret place. No foe can withstand this.

We are totally safe from the kingdom of darkness with Jesus. And the war we fight is to keep that faith. The faith of the victory Jesus won over the devil. Just a little bit of rock n’ roll trivia for ya. People think we ‘war’ with demons in that they can attack us, they can’t attack us coz Jesus makes us safe from them. They try to lie to us to keep us out of that faith. When you have that faith God meets it with His power and you are safe. Like the armor of God makes you safe. The truth of salvation, the shield of faith, the mighty power of God, etc.. Jesus is God and He always had power over the enemy, as you can see from His earthly ministry. He came to save US from the enemy and to take the authority on earth as well as in heaven that the enemy had over PEOPLE, to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus did that, so that if we serve Jesus then we come under His authority and we are safe. Safe.

Victory is mine! you ever see that tbs commercial where they say that over and over? Victory is mine! Well I’m here to tell ya, victory is mine! And the future is safe with God.

The LORD has taken away your punishment,
He has turned back your enemy.
The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. This verse is incoming, it’s incubating, it’s in the bag. Besides, God has told me that I’m safe with Him. I just kind of messed up the truth of that when He told me.. If you have faith like a mustard seed then it grows right? coz Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith.. and God meets our faith with His power, His power to heal, and His power for more faith. Victory is mine!

I think I need to take a bit of a break from blogging. I was listening to a sermon about how stuff in your life can get too big and actually smother the word, and hurt your faith.. And I was thinking that with my so many blogs and the way I pour my heart out that it’s taken a wrong place in my life. So I think I’ll stop it for a while. Butterflies, don’t worry, I’ll still visit your page and stuff, there’s nothing wrong with coming to see you, hehe..
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Snidget has passed the baton on to ME, amongst other lucky people.. and for a moment my head spun and I wondered, what could this mean? am I meant to be fun now? dare I say amusing? but then I realized that her post was about music and not the incredible lightness of being, so here I am putting up my five songs for the day.. I have just been on a quest for songs of a certain theme.. classic feel good songs that can REALLY make ya feel good, in that you can imagine them being sung to you by GOD, hehe.. like just shut your eyes and imagine ok? ok..

Joe Cocker.. ‘Have a Little Faith in Me’
James Taylor.. ‘You’ve Got a Friend’
Simon and Garfunkle.. ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’
Marvin Gaye.. ‘Lean On Me’
Staple Singers.. ‘I’ll Take You There’

Total space on harddrive for music:
738 meg coz I just wiped out my hard drive not that long ago..

Last CD I bought:
Tom Waits ‘Mule Variations’.. rockin’ by the way, I should prolly get the new one.

Song playing right now:
Tones on Tail ‘Go’.. weird little 80’s hit, boingy boingy.. it’s on my radio blog.

I doubt that there are five freakin’ people that read this blog for me to pass this on to, *chagrin* butterflies can run with it ifin’ she cares to.

I hope y’all enjoy my choices and that you find them inspirational and all that.. There’s nothin’ like the classics, hehe..

Hey there’s a two hour season finale speacial of CSI on tonight.. directed by quenton tarentino, or how ever the heck you spell his name. should be good. alot of CSI is looking the same to me, but sometimes that’s ok, coz you can count on it to be good. tarentino should mix it up a bit, wonder what the sound track will be like.

tell ya one thing I’d like to miss is freakin’ starwars part 7 or whatever it is. ‘the force’?? what kind of creepy crap is that?? I get sick of all the alien stuff anyway, I think that’s a sick subculture out there. but I’m sure hubby will use the force on me one night and I will end up watching it… ‘for the special effects honey’.. that’s what he always says when he makes me watch dubious movies. I don’t care THAT MUCH.. I will watch it. I always watch ‘aliens’ with sigourney weaver when it’s on, think it’s a good chick flick. I just hope yoda isn’t in it, yoda is the worst of them all. even looks like a little demon, and he’s spouting all that new age stuff in that uber weird voice… and luke skywalker LISTENS, totally unbelievable lol that ain’t real I tell ya, star wars is fake! It’s a big conspiracy. The future never happens! Tho we have a little robot vacuum cleaner now, hehe.. that’s sorta like ‘the future’ ain’t it? Imagine one of those 50’s housewives in one of those appliances of the future commercials they used to have.. she would have had a fit of orgasmic glee at the sight of our robot vacuum cleaner. She would have fallen down and not been able to get up. The vacuum cleaner would have to take care of her. It would have been a 7 martinis while making dinner day. She would begin sniffing her freedom wafting down from the hills and run off with the gardener. She would find God coz God and science are inescapably connected. Curlers in your hair? Shame on you! I scream, You scream, We all scream for ice cream.. The dog would never stop barking and she would never stop singing, in the immortal words of sigue sigue sputnik ‘mmmmm mmmm I love technology!’.

I went to walmart tonight with SIL and wee niece. I was thinking about that part in the bible where Jesus says ’suffer the little children to come unto Me’ and then says that the kingdom of heaven is made of such as these.. and I was looking at my niece and thinking I totally knew what Jesus meant

At one point my niece walked by one of those racks that stuck out from a peg board that was right at the height of her head, and it pulled out a TON of her hair, and she started to cry and then say ‘I want my hair back!’ and my heart was like wrenching at her tears and her holding the side of her head in pain. So I asked my SIL ‘does that totally wrench your heart or WHAT??’ and she’s all ‘eeeeyeah!! I just have to shove it out of my mind or I’ll freak out and then make her worse’.. but I was thinking of how badly it hurt MY heart and imagining how much it must hurt a mother’s heart. I couldn’t imagine having kids.. it would probably tear me to pieces.

I’ve got a good photoshop ebook, it’s nice and comforting to read.. tho that ‘inside’ book we have is organized nicely and has better subject matter, it was quite terrifying to read. hard to understand and they didn’t seem to care much that they made themselves clear. So I’m having a grand ol’ time reading my new ebook tho I am saddened to report that I’m experiencing information overload and I want to continue reading.. I hope that I haven’t blown it out of proportion in my mind.. the capabilities of photoshop.. well there’s always tutorials out there. I suppose this is a ridiculous endeavour, but God has good plans for me!

Here’s the song that God is singing ..along with joe cocker.. it’s in the radio blog.. look down the side of the page, you can listen to it.

“When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Let my love throw a spark
Have a little faith in me

And when the tears you cry
Are all you can belive
Give these loving arms a try baby
Have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

When your secret heart
Cannot speak so easily
From a whisper start
To have a little faith in me

And when your back’s against the wall
Just turn around and you will see
I will catch your fall
Have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Let my love throw a spark
Have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

I’ve been loving you for such a long time
Expecting nothing in return
Just for you to have a little faith in me
You know time, time is our friend
I will hold you up, I will hold you up ”

I have a book by smith wigglesworth on faith. I think I will reread it. He was kinda like me, believed in ultimate healing and victory from God, but of course was confused by his daughter’s deafness and such. God did amazing healings and such thru his ministry. I’m not that kind of a believer coz I’m LIKE smith wigglesworth.. I’m that kind of a believer because of what God has already done for me, because of what God has shown me that He is.. and maybe the road IS dark for the moment, but I know because I know.. and maybe God does have to sing me a little song to remind me.. but I KNOW.. I may be confused about bad stuff that’s hanging around and I don’t even understand HOW it can be hanging around in the face of the almighty God.. but I know. when Jesus said to doubting thomas ‘you believed because you have seen, blessed are those who believe without seeing’.. I always think of myself as somebody who has totally SEEN.. I’m not to be patted on the back for the way I believe, coz God showed me everything. and even WITH God showing me everything, I still falter coz of suffering.. and God has to sing me songs, hehe.. I think with awe.. ‘what will God do next?’.. and the faith comes when God hands it to me; He gives it to me as a gift. Now I guess He’s asking me to muster up some of my own.

this is my post it note for the day: ‘rely on God over people’

sometimes I listen to a song and I wish that I had musical talent.. you know what I mean? It’s so beautiful and inspiring sometimes. maybe not that the SONG is beautiful and inspiring.. it could be kid rock’s ‘i wanna be a cowboy’ that does it for me. It’s just the FACT of the song, that something can do that to a person. move you, stir your passions like that. I don’t wish to be a STAR, nothing like that.. but to WRITE songs, like tom waits.. to create things like that, would be so wonderful. I don’t think I’m a creative person, but I think I have a little bit of a longing, you know? to add things. I mean wouldn’t it be nice to add beauty? to make something.. I must be having a mid-life crisis or something. I do like photography. but I don’t like the fact that I totally have to learn photoshop and stuff. complicated and bloated software. tho I’m sure it’s wonderful and all. I don’t like reading big books that I forget each page as I’m reading it.
I’m a shy person, but inside I’m like screaming for the passion of God.. God is going to have to tell me to settle down again.. I think perhaps I AM a passionate person, and that’s just coming out now.. now that I have God. because God inspires passion, don’t you think? hmmmm, are Christians ALLOWED to be passionate? lol I’m wondering if there’s any cautions in the bible about ‘passions’. Are we allowed to be creative? or is that impulse sort of wanting to be like God? it’s strange the types of questions that are so basic and totally unanswered for me. It may seem a weird question, but my hubby has been like almost totally blocked artistically since becoming a Christian, so I wonder about stuff like that sometimes.. why Christian pop music isn’t as good as secular pop music.. I don’t know, there is U2 I guess.. they are supposedly Christian. but then you gotta wonder about songs like ‘I still haven’t found what I’m lookin’ for’.. Sometimes I think my hubbies artistic block may be self imposed, because people get a little stilted when they become Christian, think they have to give up the world.. which you sorta do. Maybe God has to block everything and then starts over later with His stuff. When I was first a Christian I couldn’t MOVE. I couldn’t do anything haha. I couldn’t even go out for coffee without stumbling. God has to scribble you out and rewrite you. Now I can even watch horror movies, pretty much without batting an eye. Anyway, I’m watching another day go by. I don’t have the ‘right’ photoshop book to read. gotta get hubby to download one for me. I’m feeling totally lazy about the whole thing in that I’m not real confident that I CAN learn how to use photoshop. plus I don’t feel like working that hard to try and remember a zillion software thingamajigs. I learned how to use corel draw way back when, but my brain worked better back then. I think maybe I will attempt to do a tutorial or two, see if that makes me feel better or worse..

the book i’m reading says i’m selfish or whatever for thinking that God will give me health and happiness and ‘heaven on earth’.. haha!! I actually think there’s something in the bible about it.. ‘your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven’.. ‘the purpose driven life’ is a good book, but I think he’s just wrong sometimes.. saying yer selfish for wanting God to give you health and happiness and that life is about suffering or whatever he said, I don’t buy it.. he said you shouldn’t want it ‘easy’, that God doesn’t make things easy.. but hey! i think there’s something in the bible about that too… ‘my yoke is EASY, my burden is light..’ I know that Jesus said there would be tribulations, but I think that has more to do with the devil, not because God isn’t trying to give you freedom and ease. I have faith in all the wonderful things that God is giving me! I don’t think He wants suffering for me, perish the thought.. I think the idea of suffering with or for Jesus is a totally different thing than being sick or broke or whatever earthly suffering one can think of. Jesus wants us to RELATE to Him, that’s a different matter. Take up your cross daily is not being sick.. I can’t really speak on what it is tho hehe, I’m just a baby Christian. As a matter of fact I shouldn’t even be giving opinions like this.. I’m not qualified. but the fact is that I HAVE opinions like this, so I’m writing about them even tho that might be wrong. butterflies, don’t listen to me lol and nobody else reads my page.. it’s just that I believe in what JESUS said ‘your kingdome come..’ not that suffering stuff it said in the book. I know it says stuff in the bible about suffering Jesus’ sufferings and such, but obviously that doesn’t mean suffering YOUR sufferings, coz in the bible it says that God is mighty to save.. hey, I know there’s alot of suffering in the world, but you know what God said to me about that? He said things aren’t supposed to be that way, that people are supposed to be one with God.. so that says to me that there is hope of no suffering when you are one with God.. not suffering with God anyway.. I don’t believe God wants us to suffer. I trust God that way. heaven on earth? that’s what Jesus prayed, so I’m going with it.. but hey, you know what they say, opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one and everybody thinks everybody else’s stinks lol..

yesterday I was going to post this irritated post about the new software package I embarking on, but I deleted it like I do most irritated posts.. anyway, I was ticked off that I couldn’t edit the html, so today I kind of spent the day looking around for a different package that would allow editing of the html and none of them do, then suddenly I thought ‘I will just cut and paste the code!’ it’s like man! 14 years ago I would have thought of that in 2 seconds.. now it takes me two days, and frankly I probably didn’t think of it at all.. God probably told me lol.. you know, a Holy Spirit whisper.. also I had a great day in other respects.. I have the greatest web host ever.. he’s the most rockin’ dude.. today I get this email and he’s offering total double yer space upgrades! I’m like no fair I got the biggest package I can’t upgrade.. and he tells me how I can double my space for a couple bucks a month more and get another website.. I’m so happy about that. I’m a flibbertyjibbet and everything, but hey ifin’ I DO do something artistic, another website will come in real handy.. I’ve never had such an awesome web host. God’s really blessing me with this I think. tho that photoshop book I ordered was sold out, little closed door there, but maybe I will just make do with the old version book I have. I did feel bad about spending the money on the book.
little bit of a wasted day today in that I didn’t read or learn anything in my new software package, mostly coz I spent the day looking for OTHER software packages where I could edit.. I didn’t think of my idea until one in the morning. the way it just ‘popped’ into my head tho I’m pretty sure it came from God.. God helps me with my web stuff I’m sure of it. Some people think that computers and technology is ‘evil’ hehe, but I think God has a bit of a programmer in Him and He has a good time with the problem solving. I think He enjoys it. Not that it’s difficult or challenging for God, but it’s like a toy that He plays with.. I think He likes putting the right weird script in a page as much as anyone. and finding the right weird script on google is a boon.. it’s a gift He gets to give.. the day He introduced me to iframes was an awesome day lol.. bill and ted’s bogus journey is on.. i like it when they go to heaven and he says ‘woah, this is atypical’.. excellent example of a movie where the sequel is better than the original. that movie cracks me up, where as bill and ted’s excellent adventure didn’t do anything for me. I like the character death, losing at battleship and getting all unnerved. best 3 out of 7? yer damn right!! I didn’t like station tho.. thought station was stupid.. but I liked the way they yelled STATION!! all the time lol..
you know what movie I thought was great that my brother and his wife just HATED? ‘I heart huckabees’.. I still think back on it with a warm heart, I think I will watch it again lol. On my diet thread a friend had mentioned the movie before I had watched it and said I wouldn’t like it because it was existentialist lol.. like what, I can’t listen to it coz I’m a Christian? I thought it was absolutely hilarious the way they were all philosophically TORTURED.. maybe I thought it was more hilarious BECAUSE I’m a Christian lol.. babbling all that nonsense and getting so upset about it.. ‘do you love me? HE LIKES my bonnet!’.. the huckabees model started dressing all amish, totally lost it over philosophy run amok.. I must say that I don’t think the movie was exactly PRO-existentialism.. I mean how could it be? it was a farce lol.. It was probably written by a jaded ex-existentialist. I thought it was real endearing, but I guess that’s a matter of taste, coz my bro and his wife just loathed it.. said it was like the WORST movie and a total waste of time. weird. they must be closet existentialists lol.. anyway, I’m babbling. I should go to bed or something.

I just read the chapter about protecting my church in ‘the purpose filled life’.. sometimes I think that book is a little unreasonable lol but the chapter made me feel nice anyway. It’s made me think more about my church in a churchy kind of way.. whereas I have always been real stand offish. I love my pastor, but I have been stand offish about THE CHURCH, you know? I still feel real ‘different’ hehe.. I think maybe that’s harming me as much in the Christian community as it did in the secular world. since now I’m supposed to be a sheep.. baaa! and I’m supposed to be part of ‘the body’. I’ve always liked being different.. being an individual.. but sometimes I don’t like it and just want to be loved and accepted. but oh well, it’s better to be loved by God than by ‘man’ and I’m totally loooooved by God!! He favors me and lavishes me with His goodness.. I wouldn’t trade God for anything. God is more valuable than a zillion anythings. but I digress.. I was talking about being different and being stand offish.. I read that chapter and it kind of made me think lovingly about being a part of a group, in that now I’m part of the kingdom, the body, other believers are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I like that suddenly. I’m glad I read the chapter, I was going to skip reading tonight coz I kind of wasn’t in the mood, but then I read anyway, and God blessed me. I’m in such a good mood you know? why am I in a good mood? coz God totally loves and blesses and heals me on a daily basis and I can’t ignore or deny that coz He’s so big and beautiful and His blessings overtake me. Sometimes I get caught up in my ’stress’, admittedly haha, but when God comes along none of that matters coz it’s like it can’t stand up to God, it becomes invisible compared to God. It’s like that scripture about the light and the dark.. you know how the darkness can’t stand up to the light. God’s the victor.. He is mighty to save! zephenia 3:14 I think.. I remember a pastor doing a whole sermon around that scripture.. He will sing songs around you, something like that.. I would like to be able to hear the songs that God sings

I love the gilmore girls.. it always puts me in a good mood.. I’ve had a squinchy day, but the gilmore girls is making me happy. the wonders of modern technology. where excurtiatingly witty people can be pixelated and delivered into my living room for my entertainment. logan: ‘what do you think of friday?’.. rorie: ‘it’s a happy alternative to thursday’.. now there’s a line you wish you could steal and use in real life, but you know nobody will ever ask you what you think of a day.. he was wanting to make a date with her and it seemed natural on the show, but it would never happen in real life alas…

Well I didn’t get the job at the bookstore. Guess the girl with the english lit degree looked too good. Still, I thought they might be hiring more than one person and I might be ok.. in the immortal words of john belushi.. BUT NOOOOOOOO… So I’m trying to think of what I can do.. My hubby says I should be artistic because he’s like my patron so I will try and be stupid with my photography or something. Can ya MAKE yourself be creative? hubby has a photoshop book.. I wonder if it’s good. I shall PRETEND I’m creative and that I have all the time in the world and read the photoshop book.. maybe. What do you think butterflies? Can one just turn oneself into an artist? just because one has a need to? I suppose I won’t know until I try aye? I do love my camera. And I like to play in photoshop as much as I can.. so maybe this is the ticket.. we’ll see..