My dear friends:
I see in this beautiful painting by Shelly Bandel Rawlings
a call to ‘to come up higher.’ Together with our son Daniel;
they produce a blog: ‘Choose Love not Fear.’
I am purposefully avoiding any stressful topics. It is not the time. We need to learn how to REST, in order to receive the grace and mercy coming down to us from the portals of heaven. The doors of heaven are open. Please open the doors of your mind heart and emotions to receive a new infilling of the Holy Spirit. Hide nothing, hold nothing back, lay it all on His alter.
Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and dies it abides alone …
“Who shall separate us from the love of Messiah – Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am persuaded,
that neither death, nor life, no angels, nor principalities,
nor powers of things present, nor things to come,
nor night, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Messiah – Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35, 38,39.
With summer, quickly fading into history; I pray you will make time to be still and rest. Did you experience difficulty in prayer this July? We did and asked, “What hit us.” The news, terrible yes! The general world situation? Disturbing yes. Too much work? Yes, at our age! All of the above and yet … something was going on, a shifting in the heavenlies. Even young people do not want to watch the news. And the future? … woe is me if we listen to just about everyone, be they pundits or preachers. It is the hour of great deception. This is why we MUST hide ourselves in the written Word, the Bible. We live by the mercy of God and identify with the blood sacrifice of Messiah. We need more of His Eternal Spirit.
Come Up Higher!
“While asleep I was “lightened” if there is such a word? (“lightened” typically refers to making something less heavy or less burdensome.) Was it an epiphany? A visitation? A dream? I was fully conscious, observing from a distance. Perhaps this has happened to you?
First of all, it was as if a portal in heaven was opened to me, and my life unfolded before me. I looked on it through a soft other worldly golden light. It unfolded in sound and color like a film, beginning in the very beginning.
“Before you were formed in the womb I knew you.
Before you were born I set you apart.” Jeremiah 1:5
My life was opened anew. First I watched a tiny girl, viewed from an entirely new perspective of love. My life, scene after scene was played out in this warm penetrating eternal Light of Love. I saw the major players in my life, those who covered, protected, spoke into my life and then the ‘call’ came at age 13. I thrived in many nations, with many different peoples, languages and challenges. My husband was a gift, together our lives unfolded nation by nation. I saw it objectively and understood with a new depth I could not have imagined.
Appreciation and wonder flooded through me as I watched the life I have been gifted to live right up to this present moment. I was overwhelmed! I worshipped out of a sense of wonder, joy and appreciation. I awoke with tears running down my face, speaking in other tongues of worship. I didn’t want it to ever end! Please do not misunderstand. This was not a narcissistic preoccupation with self. Not at all. I was “lifted” out of myself to observe the constant LOVE that has lit up my life from the very foundation of the world, as it is written! I believe the LORD God Almighty was showing me that He was there from the beginning to create in me a clean hart and renew a right spirit with in me time after time. How precious it was.” Meridel
It may be a “cup of cold water only …”Matthew 10:42
Do I feel badly I didn’t do the BIG things for God? Ah, but allow me to ask myself: have I missed the “little things!”
“What am I to do? I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good work, therefore, any kindness or any service I can render to any soul of man or animal, let me do it now. Let me not neglect or defer it, for I shall not pass this way again.” Old Quaker Saying.
“It isn’t the thing that you do, dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone.
Which gives you the bitter headache
At the setting of the sun.
The tender word unspoken,
The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.
The stone you might have lifted
Out of your brother’s way,
The bit of heartsore counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.
These little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind,
These chances to be angels,
Which even mortals find –
They come in night and silence,
Each chill reproachful wraith
When hope is faint and flagging,
And s blight has covered faith.
For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late,
And it’s not the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bitter heartache,
At the setting of the sun.”
Adelaide Proctor
“Give what you have; to someone it may be better than you dare to think.” Longfellow
Please determine you will enjoy the remainder of your summer. The world will not be the same again, so learn to appreciate and say thank you for today. This comes to you with grateful hearts for your encouraging notes and gifts. What dear friends you are. which help to keep the lights on!
In our God’s mighty ETERNAL love,
Jay and Meridel Rawlings.
Go ahead: write me that little note. I’d love to hear from you. And, why not
Share my letter with a friend. Every blessing, Meridel.
meridel.rawlings@gmail.com
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