FlashBack Friday #1
TODAY… JUST for Today, I Surrender. To HIM. Just like I did before Yesterday became TODAY. I plan to do it again, when Tomorrow once again becomes TODAY. We’ll see! But I’m getting better at it – some days. Hopefully, it will soon become a habit. Life’s better when I do. D’ya wan’na join me? He’ll teach us how.
3 years ago, this was my post… It shares more about Surrendering
https://itreallyisjustthatsimple.com/2015/08/22/sharing/
SEASONS Come. SEASONS Go. But they don’t come BACK, they come AGAIN. Each season comes for it’s own Purpose. Strive to learn / fulfill the Purpose in its Season. Don’t long too much for the end of this season in hopes for a better one to come. Sun. Rain. Wind. Snow. ALL Things work together for good. If one yearns in Winter for the coming Spring, Angels in the Snow may never appear.
Are you in a WINTER season? Take time to rest, heal and recuperate, asking God to reveal His Handiwork in You
Are you in a Spring Season? Take time to Sow the Best Seeds
Are you in Summer? Let Him continue the Work He started in you
Are you experiencing a Harvest? Be sure to share out of the abundance!
Understand, God’s Seasons are not, like nature’s, specific lengths and times. The Seasons in my life have usually been recognized as such only in hindsight. Some weeks I seem to be in a different season every day. But I have learned it’s possible to TRUST HIM to know BEST!
Who, for the JOY set before Him, endured the Cross
Hebrews 12:10
Almost 30 years ago, I was lying in a hospital surgery room for the specific purpose of donating my left kidney to my then – 18 year old son. A few years later, on Easter morning, sitting in a Sunday School Young Married Class, I wrote this poem: FORSAKEN? The failure of my son’s kidneys and subsequent transplant process taught me an important and very personal lesson about why GOD allowed his Son to be nailed to that tree.
It’s easy to hear or read or even memorize John 3:16, “For GOD so LOVED the WORLD He gave…” and accept the truth of it. After all, He was dying for all mankind! But these next two phrases take it to a whole different, very personal level:
“*I* was on His Mind, when He was on The Cross.” and:
“If I was the ONLY person on earth, Christ would have died for ME!”
I was awake before 5am this morning in order to pick up my friend and take him to his appointment for surgery. When I met him 3 years ago, he explained he was an agnostic. He accepted the thought of “something or someone being in charge,” but he also acknowledged serious doubts of ever being able to know who or what that could be. (An atheist makes the claim “There is nothing or no one in charge, it all just came to be.”) In spite of our declared differences, we made a connection. Later, he commented to me… “Jim, you give me a lot to think about.” Months later, he began describing himself as a “praying agnostic with an open mind.” My daughter has since said: “Dad, you and Ronnie are good for each other.”
This morning, as we neared the surgery center, I posed this Query to him: “So, let me ask you, what are your current thoughts about this JESUS Guy?” He said he has accepted the historical truth that Jesus walked this earth, and died on The Cross, but he’s not sure what that means to him today.
As we sat in the parking lot, I told him; “Scripture says ‘For the JOY set before Him, He endured The Cross.’ Ronnie, I’ve come to realize that I AM THE JOY, FOR WHICH JESUS ENDURED THE CROSS! The possibility of having a personal relationship with ME brought Him a Joy that surpassed the agony.”
It was not the Son’s obedience to the will of His Father that brought Him Joy. It was not finally gaining victory over His arch enemy, Satan that made Him want to dance with Joy. It was not the possibility of finishing His work on earth and finally going home. Jesus was looking forward some 2000+ years into the future to the possibility of having an ongoing, growing relationship with JIM CATLETT! It’s TRUE, *I* was on His mind as He drew His last breath and declared: “IT IS FINISHED!”
Pssst… He wants me to tell you… YOU were on His mind, too!
I can in no way compare the kidney transplant surgery my son and I experienced to the absolute agony of Christ’s Death. But the fact that I gave life to him (again) has connected my son and I in a way we did not have before. The morning after the surgery, as I agonizingly lay in bed and watched My Son bounce into the room with a new color in his face and a brightness to his eyes that he had not had for 10 years, my JOY knew no limits. He grabbed the crossbar of the bed next to me, swung across and plopped down on the bed with a huge grin. Today, almost 30 years later, he still has that part of me living in him, doing its job!.
Today, I have CHRIST living in me. Simply because God Loved Me enough to offer me the Gift of His Son’s Death. And… I said “YES!”
He makes YOU the same offer!!
Have you given an answer?
#ThrowBackThursday (OneDayEarly)
Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m sitting at our kitchen table writing while watching my daughter and my WW* put together the 1000 piece Thomas KinKade jigsaw puzzle I gave her this morning.
It’s her favorite pastime. These days, she usually does jigsaw puzzles on her iPad, so this is a throwback day in more ways than one.
I was planning to post a T.B.T. tomorrow, but because of the 3 1/2 year old post I want to share, I thought Valentine’s Day would be appropriate.
I shared with a friend on FaceBook this morning – “My wife has been married to 3 or 4 different men, but – they were all me!” I’ve come to regret the way “those men” treated her in the past. Fortunately, they don’t hang around with us very much any more. We’re learning to not answer the door when they come-a-knockin’. More and more, I’m realizing my responsibility to protect her from “those guys!” It’s made our marriage and her life easier.
This link will take you on a 10 day road trip we took back in August of ‘13. The day we left Texas for home in California became one of the major turning points of this journey of Life and Love. Most of Life’s turning points are BabySteps rather than giant leaps, but read this one with an open heart. I pray it makes this Valent-Day just a wee bit sweeter for you and yours!
*WonderWife
https://itreallyisjustthatsimple.com/2014/04/03/hardncrunchy/
The GRACE-ful Flow of Forgiveness
I can Forgive Others Because
I am Forgiven – By Him!
Garbage disposals only work because water flows in and through.
If there is no flow the pipes gets clogged.
The Process of becoming all I can be for God has a lot more to do with
HIS work of GRACE in me than it does MY work on me or for Him
My sister Millye, my WW Nelda and I are driving to Carmichael this morning to spend the day with my brother Cliff, along with my other sisters, Naomi and Betty.
Doyle, we will miss U!
Cliff’s wife Susan recently “won” her battle with ALS. I must say it that way, because the disease DID NOT!!! defeat her. Yes, it stole her body, but EVERYTHING ELSE that Susan was remained intact.
Nelda and I agree, (as we do with most things) – Susan was the most amazing woman we know. Her journey through ALS served to expose and strengthen her core of deep faith, humor and loving care for others.
I remember at the beginning, her thought was “How can this struggle be used to help others?” I saw her embrace this new fight in the same way she approached every facet of her life. Through it all, her favorite phrase remained: “It is well with my soul!”
As an expression of her concern for others, she started a blog called “SusansSteps”.
We who followed her blog have been blessed, challenged, saddened, amused, loved, enriched and encouraged.
It is totally appropriate, and so much “Just like Susan” that in this last post, she declares that this is her GRADUATION.
SUSAN, You did it with the highest honors!
Rainy Monday Morning Musings…
Yesterday at New Life Church, Pastor Gary shared he “is not one to make New Year Resolutions.” I totally identified with him. Pastor Ben had already made the same statement, so I feel I’m in good company. Gary then went on the say he likes the idea of living with a yearly THEME rather than a list of resolutions.
I’ve had several words that could describe my journey over the past few (7) years of recovery. Each one seemed to build upon the last. Can I call them THEMES?
• I think the first was “LOVE!” As in when God said: “Jim, I want to begin to teach U just how much I LOVE U! I’ve spent much my life trying to get Him to Love me more. He showed me that He doesn’t do “much” or “more“. S’prise, S’prise, S’prise! He already does!! LOVE! (me) as much as He ever will – and always has.
• The next theme was “TRUST“. Love and Trust have become two sides of the same coin in my life. I can’t have one without the other. in ALL my relationships. The more I discovered God’s Love for me, the more I came to Trust Him. The more I Trust Him, the more I Love Him. U see, “MORE” “TRUST” is on my side of the fence. It’s already all been done from His side. His greatest purpose in my life is to teach me how to grow in that.
• As I recall, it was Jan 10, 3 or 4 years ago. I was sick that Sunday morning, and as a result I attended the 5:30 service. One of the advantages of that later service is that we don’t have to hurry, so as I knelt at the altar that evening, the word “STILL” was on my mind. As in… “Be Still – and KNOW“! It became my theme for the year. I didn’t go home after service and make a list (of resolutions) describing how I was going to learn to BE STILL, but by November, I was amazed to recognize how the turmoil and storms of my life had calmed. I’d love to be able to say it was the end of my struggles, but I can’t, because of the next theme:
• HONESTY. Alcoholics Anonymous uses the term “Rigorous Honesty“. One of the reasons I ended up in Celebrate Recovery 7 years ago was because of the masks I had learned to wear. I had gotten lost behind the secrets. Guess What!!! SECRETS make us lie!! The biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves. A young lady once shared with me: “He can’t tell me the truth, because he doesn’t know the truth himself.” It’s been a difficult journey to move out from behind the masks into honesty, from that place of hiding. It still calls to me. It seems like a place of safety, but it quickly becomes a dark, lonely place.
• I could show U the very spot I was standing when a man called me “SIR JAMES“. U can read about him here and here. One of the best things that ever happened to me in recovery is when I found out who SIR JAMES is. I’d LOVE to be able to say “he was“, but I will never be completely free from him. (pssst – we all have a “Sir James” that lives in us!) I can say however, he is nowhere near as dominant as he used to be.
• THEMES… LOVE, TRUST, Be STILL, HONESTY, SIR JAMES…, I could go on. But I said all that to say this; as Gary was sharing yesterday, this word came to my mind… “DEEPER“. On the way to church yesterday morning, my daughter shared her word of the year with us: “BLOOM“. Then my youngest grandson shared his: “FAITH.” He then changed it to “EMMANUEL” (either one is fine with his PaPa) His mother asked him if he knew what that meant, and he said “God With Us“!!
But I digress… What does “DEEPER” mean for me this year? I’m sure I don’t have much of a clue as yet. But if U read my last post, U might understand my trepidation as I contemplate what it might mean and where it might take me. I have to remember the theme of “STILL” and how I didn’t see it’s progress at first. Can I TRUST that SomeOne knows more about it than I do?
DEEPER… in
Relationships?
His Word?
Wisdom?
Generosity?
Prayer?
???
Time will tell…. Stay tuned, it should be interesting! and scary!! MY favorite word, perhaps the underlying theme of this journey is PROCESS. I’m glad He’s teaching (taught) me that HE knows so much more about the process than I do. After all, He’s God! I’m not!
How do I get from HERE to THERE?
How did I get HERE?
I am a WRITER!
But… I’m not writing
I have a gift for sharing, One – on – One
But… I’m isolating
I’m very task – oriented
But… @ What Price?
I have SO MUCH to do
But… why don’t I, why won’t I – ask for help!?
I THINK‘n THINK‘n THINKn THINK!n TH…
In (stormy) circles, getting nowhere
I enjoy being generous‘n sharing with others…
So… why am I feeling so alone?
I believe in BABY STEPs
So… why am I (do I seem to be) frozen in place?
I’m a BLOGGER
Who has stopped blogging!
I KNOW!!! GOD Loves me!!!!
Why does He seem to be in the other room?
With the door closed?
S I R J A M E S !!!
U sneaky, hiding, lying-in-wait-for-me-
T E R R O R I S T !!
I thought U’d been defeated!
I stopped watching for Ur tricks…
It had been so long since I’d heard from U!
I didn’t recognize U when U snuck up on me!
AGAIN!!!
Hmmm, Maybe, Just Maybe,
“THERE”
Is much closer than I thought!!
T O D A Y ...
A New Year? Yes,
A New Beginning?
NO, Just another Baby Step
And learning (once again) to listen to
The Right Voice!
It Really IS Just That Simple 