“I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Hebrews 13:5b

I need to realize, that what is past is past. As I get older, I need to come to grips with reality. God is my only reality.

That which I have experienced in the past with joy and thanksgiving and have been changed, cannot be returned to original. My wife will never be who she was. My marriage and the relationship with my wife will never be something I can take for granted again. My mom will never be a strong healthy woman again. My body will suffer the affects of being overweight and of diabetes and not return to that which I took for granted at the age of 20 and 30.

Instead, we must take what we have, we must placed it before God, we must ask for wisdom from Him, we must move forward in faith, we must embrace the gifts of today, we must rediscover joy (if it seems lost), and we must give thanks. We will encounter new challenges, new illnesses, new disappointments but also we will encounter new joys and will give heartfelt thanks to God for His mercies and for His presence in our lifes. God wants to be the keeper of our burdens. God wants us to rest in His arms. God gives us opportunities of growth and opportunities of trust, and He has not forsaken us even when the world seems to be collapsing all around us.

Psalm 145
A psalm of praise. Of David.

1 [a] I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.

2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.

3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.

4 One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.

5 They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works. [b]

6 They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds.

7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

8 The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

9 The LORD is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.

10 All you have made will praise you, O LORD;
your saints will extol you.

11 They will tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,

12 so that all men may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made. [c]

14 The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.

15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.

16 You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and loving toward all he has made.

18 The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.

20 The LORD watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

21 My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

Painted from a dream?

Dream Thoughts and Thoughs on Dreams

Its just a bit weird when a new element is added to your deam, and a part of you KNOW that you had not encountered the element, but the dream part reactes like, ‘oh, that right… ‘, as if the element belong there, you known about it, the detail of it momentary slipped from memory.

In my dream, I picked up a shirt, and under the shirt was a cobra snake. I had a ‘memory’ in the dream, of the snake being a part of the dream, and I was ‘oh yeah’ in my reaction to it’s presence, but my watching brain knew the element was new and everything familiar about it was false.

No wonder I woke up feeling as if I had no sleep what-so-ever.

never forget…

remember…

Why English is so hard to learn…

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

John Stossel’s The Ugly Truth of Obamacare

But even if some conservative Republican critics are wrong about Section 1233 (death panels), there is good reason to worry about Obama’s nationalization scheme.

The reason can be found in Econ 101. Medical care doesn’t grow on trees. It must be produced by human and physical capital, and those resources are limited. Therefore, if demand for health care services increases — which is Obama’s point in extending health insurance — prices must go up. But somehow Obama also promises, “I won’t sign a bill that doesn’t reduce health care inflation”.

This is magical thinking. Obama, talented as he is, can’t repeal the laws of supply and demand. Costs are real. If they are incurred, someone has to pay them. But as economist Thomas Sowell points out, politicians can control costs — by refusing to pay for the services.

It’s called rationing.

The entire article; is short and worth reading!

Puzzle

My daughter and wife spent a week on this puzzle, completed last night.

From Hotair.com: Who We Are

Who We Are
posted at 8:48 am on August 6, 2009 by Doctor Zero
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There seems to be a bit of confusion among Democrats about the nature of the opposition to their plans. Maybe I can help clear things up, by telling them a few things about us.

We’re not paid minions of any corporate interest or lobby. Most bloggers working to stop the Obama health-care disaster are like me, writing when they can find the time, because we care about the future of our country. The same is true of the people showing up at town hall meetings, and organizing rallies. Some of us are well-dressed in tailored suits. Others wear jeans and T-shirts. Most of us are dressed in what we wore to work.

Our support for a massive government program does not increase when you tell us we’re not allowed to ask questions about it.

We’re not racists. We’re also not racialists. We don’t think a wise Latina is inherently more qualified to do anything than a wise Asian woman, a wise white woman, or a wise white man. We’re tired of being fed excuses for high government offices staffed by anything but the best people for the job. There are too many high government offices, so we’d like some of Obama’s absurdly incompetent appointees to take their titles with them when they leave. We remember what it was like when we got rid of the Clinton mob, so we’ll be conducting inventories on the contents of those vacated offices, before we turn out the lights and pour cement in the locks.

We don’t like having to fight desperate battles to save our freedom and future from socialist politicians every ten or twenty years. We don’t like having our time wasted with trillion-dollar statist fantasies, when our government is already trillions of dollars in the red. We’re tired of checking the papers each day, to see which group of us has been targeted as enemies of the State. We’re growing impatient waiting for the Democrats to come up with ideas that don’t require their supporters to hate someone. We’ve had our fill of “progressives” who act as if we’re living in 1909, and none of their diseased policies have ever been tried before.

We believe government should be punished for failing to live up to the expectations of its citizens, not the other way around. We don’t think people who destroy thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in market value should get a pass because they meant well. We’ve had enough of dodging a massive State that wants to organize, subsidize, penalize, and divide us. We refuse to pay tithe to a religion we don’t support, including the official State religion of global warming. We demand honesty, humility, and transparency from our public servants, no matter how many elections they’ve won. We won’t settle for making the only important decisions about our futures in the voting booth, once every couple of years.

We don’t blame people for showing up to grab their share of a government handout. We blame the people who stole the money from the rest of us, and put it on the table for them. We don’t think respect for private property ends at a certain income level, or that only some people should be applauded for doing their best to get ahead in life. We believe in the power and righteousness of capitalism, the exchange of goods and services between free people acting in their own best interests. There is no moral substitute for it. Every other scheme for governing human affairs amounts to a few dominating some, to the applause of others. Our freedom is not for sale, and we reserve the right to defend it from theft.

We don’t invest our hopes in the government. It is beneath the dignity of free men and women to spend their days hoping a politician decides to provide for our needs. We face the future, not with passive and helpless “hope”, but with active and dynamic faith in ourselves, and our fellow Americans. We are opposed to a political class that tries to cultivate our hopes by showering us with fear. We don’t trust politicians with our fortunes, much less with our lives. In fact, we don’t trust politicians much at all… but we absolutely require them to trust us.

We do not regard America as the sole country on Earth that should be forbidden from taking pride in its history, traditions, and achievements. We reject the notion that celebrating our traditions is an automatic insult to anyone else. We owe absolutely no apologies to murderous dictators or unelected tyrants, and we care little for their feelings. We believe there are many lessons to be learned from our history, by all the people of the world, and we cannot teach those lessons if we allow ourselves to be shamed into silence. We will never hesitate to call evil by its proper name, or give evil men good reasons to fear us.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a lot of work to do. There’s an election coming up next year.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/06/who-we-are/

Book Review: A Comprehensive Introduction to the Religions of the World

A Comprehensive Introduction to the Religions of the World
By James A Beverley

What am I going to do with this book was the thought that popped into my head when I first laid eyes on this 850 page book. Surprisingly, the book was an easy read, with plenty of information, in layman’s terms and not high-church language. The introduction sets the groundwork that included questions as to why this book was written, a list of ways that a Christian should relate to those of other religions as well as defining the Christian faith to be used as a metric. The introduction also draws a picture as to what assumptions should be made, tools like Tests for Truth in Religion, what really constitutes a cult, as well as what Beverley believes to be the Christian misuse of the word cult when applied to some religions.

The information is interesting; the language is clear and unencumbered with theological words and keeps to the point. It was easy to stay with the book, move from chapter to chapter and section to section. Information provided included timelines, principals when it comes to founders and those currently in charge, branches, originations, criticisms and pros from other sources. For further study, recommendation of websites and books that are academic, that have both favorable and critical favorable, critical and recommended for learning more about any particular religion being

A book well conceived, well constructed and well written.