Masquerade

 I tried to be strong and courageous days before and the day of waiting for the test results from my doctor. I wanted to give the appearance that I was all right and nothing was wrong. I wanted to give my peers the lie that I was not worried about the results.  Then, I broke the morning of. As I was praying with a friend, my fears came to surface. I felt the fear and anxiety from the unknown.
I almost cancelled my appointment. I told those close to me that I would go and promised that I would follow up with the results.
I realized that all I was doing was masquerading my emotions. I was not being transformed and transparent in my situation. Isn't that what the world tells us to do? Do what feels good, it's all right.
So was I wrong for worrying about the unknown? I kept repeating to myself "be strong and courageous." I also kept praying "Lord, it's no surprise to you, please don't let it be a surprise to me either, help me to be strong and courageous."
I think the Lord used this to show me that we can get lost in the world and pretend to be something we're not. We loose ourselves in the process of pleasing others. We are to be more concerned with pleasing our creator because when this life is over, we will answer to Him for our responses to this life.
Here I am again, in need of calling a doctor and making another appointment. I'm procrastinating because I don't want the results. Why not? If it's a minor problem then all this worry is for nothing and if it's a major problem then it has to be dealt with anyways. I think I am weighting the scales.
"If I do  this then that will happen and if this should happen then that will happen."
God is the only who knows what was, is, and is to come. So why worry? I've been  taught it is a sin to worry because the Lord tells us 365 times in the Word "not to be anxious, fret, or fear." I'm human though, that is an emotion, isn't it? So now there is something else to consider.
"Iy, Yiy, Yiy," as Ricky Ricardo would say. 
I surrender all. I'm going to make this really easy for myself and ask simple questions, Lord what do you want me to do?  Lord would you place the right doctor in my path? Lord, would you encourage me and strengthen me to make that call?
I've also been taught that with God all things are possible and apart from him I can do nothing. He, Jesus Christ, taught me that.
So, today is a new day. God has given us all things new under the heavens today. How will you use it?
How am I going to use it? I think I will begin by saying thank you, press forward and persevere through this trial of my own.
How about you?

~ Be in peace and grace
   Marjorie

Heaven and Hell...are real my friend.

Where is heaven? Some say that heaven is above the sky and that would be true. God says Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And God called the firmament Heaven. Then God spoke "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear."
You can read this in Genesis 1:6-10 in the Bible.
You personally may say that this is not the Heaven in which we go to when we die. The expanse of the sky and space in which the stars and planets are set. God made the firmament on the second day of creation to divide the waters that covered the earth from those which surrounded it. But the firmament includes more than the atomspheric region between the seas of eaarth and the rain clouds of the sky; it is far more vast. In fact, on the fourth day of creation God placed the stars, the sun, and the moon in the "firmament of the heavens."
Later in the book of James it says "And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit."
This tells us once again that Heaven is above us for we know that rain falls from above.
Further in Thessalonians it says "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, With the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first."
Now we can plainly see that we have to be in the first earth and heaven still that the New Heaven and Earth is not here yet. Because if it was we would have no more sea. So any teaching that heaven is here can not be true. There is a second and third heaven, but I will touch these Heavens on another day.
God had angels that wanted to be like him and be him. The ring leader filled with jealousy was Lucifer aka Satan, the devil, the enemy, the adversary, and the known more as master.  Peter tells us that God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgement. Isaiah tells us Hell is from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming; it stirs up the dead for you, all the chief ones of the earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. Ezekiel shares "they also went down to hell with it, those slain by the sword; and those who were its strong arm dwelt in its shadows among the nations."
We can see by all three of these writings that Hell is down or below us. They also tell us that is does exist and it is a place where changes of darkness dwell, death is being stirred up for you.
Hmmm, Christ died so that we may live and live free. Satan was thrown out of heaven because of his sin and lives in a place of darkness.
Hell is a place and in the New Testament it is mentioned 13 times
Old Testament 19 times
Sheol is in the Old Testament 18 times
Hades is in  the New Testament 11 times
Fire being used in the Bible to describe Hell: 23 times
I pray you search with your heart, question with your mind and come to the findings that God exist, Heaven and Hell are real places, and you have a choice to live joyous and free through the Son of God, Jesus Christ who died so that you may live.
As long as I live, I will testify to the Love I'll be a witness in the silence when words are not enough of Jesus Christ. He died so that you would not have to live a life of darkness bound in your chains and tormented in your mind.
Won't  you ask God to help change your unbeilef to belief? If he spoke the heavens and earth into existance, I am CERTAIN, he will help you today too.
~ God Loves YOU period.