Lessons learned the first 50 years

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I hit a milestone. I turned 50 years old. I am thankful that I don't feel 50.   I am thankful for things God has taught me throughout those 50 years. .  I have learned that God loves mercy and when I feel a sense that justice needs to happen over mercy, all I need to do is remember that I am thankful for when God gives me mercy instead of a just punishment.   (Micah 6:8 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.) ( Luke 6: 36  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. ) I have learned that hurt people end up hurting people.   When I am able to see that I didn't hurt them but I am bearing the results of that persons hurt inflicted by other people, it helps me forgive whatever hurt they pushed onto me and move on.  (Romans 12 : 18  If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. )  I have learned that anyone who thinks they have God
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Strangling a rat and other weird dreams....

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So...the last couple of weeks I have been struggling.  When you are in a broken world, with other broken people, you...in your own brokeness, just struggles sometimes to move in the right direction.
I have learned that I can not fix myself, but I can delay the "fixing" by TRYING to fix myself... OR I can just go to HIM.   ..which is the only right way anyway.  So, it comes down to trust (faith) ...again...

"[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you."
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

That why I can keep going despite cancer, hurts, disappointments, pain, etc.. It is that speck of Heaven.  It is the kindness of a friend that calls... the sweetness of a husband playing with the kids... the unexpected visit of a bluebird.... the prayer answered in a way not imagined..

http://inhonoroftheking.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html
You can read about my history with rats here... Not pretty... not fun.  I have feared them crawling in the attic again, infecting my  kids with all kinds of creepy crawlies.    So..last night I had an anxiety dream. 
A wild rat was crawling on the floor by the couch. I snatched it up...around its neck.  It fought to free itself and to bite me.  I just squeezed all the harder, determined to let it not be successful.  (Anyone that knows me...knows in real life I would have put it in a jar, driven it to some park, and let it go there..   Even when I run, I have to stop and pick up the earthworm on the sidewalk that is struggling for moisture and dirt so it can breathe.  My mind just won't let me keep on running...sick, huh)....  Anyway,  it seemed like minutes  that I choked that rat........finally it went limp.  I opened the door and threw it outside. ..and I woke up.   Immediately I felt like God was saying to me ...there will be other "rats" (sin issues)...but we have broken/ gotten rid of this one.   I choose to not let anyone steal my joy, keep me from doing what God has called me to...even when it is hard...  I choose to do hard things  that HE has called me to...like schooling the kids at home ..even when the yellow bus looks so appealing.
Thanks for praying... thanks for being there..

1 Corinthians 15: 50-
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[h]
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”[i]
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

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