March 2, 2016 by cindigale

Freedom

Think of the power God has, yet he refrains from imposing it on anyone. It’s not his way. He doesn’t overpower people against their will. He doesn’t manipulate or control. He has the power to do so, but would never do it. His character is so strong, he refrains from exercising the power he possesses even though use of force could accomplish his will. He lets us walk where we want, how we want, with the free will he gave each of us.

He welcomes us to friendship. He doesn’t demand it, force it, or threaten to make things bad for us if we say “no”. His relationships are not built on guilt, obligation, or coercion. They evolve out of our freedom to accept or decline his offer of companionship. Be with him if we want. Don’t if we don’t want to.

He doesn’t pull “people-things” like guilt trips and threats…

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February 24, 2016 by cindigale

In Rest and Quiet Trust

Isaiah 30:15

For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”

Elaine Clawson captured the photo of this eagle resting in the trees along the Mississippi River in Illinois.

February 18, 2016 by cindigale

Strong Tower

Psalm 61 (NLV) – A Safe Place in God

61 Hear my cry, O God. Listen to my prayer. ²I call to You from the end of the earth when my heart is weak. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. ³For You have been a safe place for me, a tower of strength where I am safe from those who fight against me. ⁴Let me live in Your tent forever. Let me be safe under the covering of Your wings. ⁵For You have heard my promises, O God. You have given me that which You give to those who fear Your name. ⁶You will add days to the life of the king. His years will be as long as the lives of many children and grandchildren added together. ⁷He will stay forever with God. Set apart loving-kindness and truth to keep him safe. ⁸So I will sing thanks to Your name forever and keep my promises day by day.

Image February 14, 2016 by cindigale

Winter

It is Valentine’s Day and snowing here in middle America. This is the day of love, we’re told. Tradition, media, and society show us what love looks like. But what if your life doesn’t look like that? What if you are in the season of winter? What if your winter has been going on for a long, long time?

Don’t be misled or feel inadequate if you don’t fit the mold of marketers on this day of candy, cards, dinners, and flowers. In truth, love doesn’t fit into that mold either. It can’t be reduced to a stereotype. It can’t be forced. It comes in its own time and may never look like an advertisement or movie. Do we really want it to, anyway? Isn’t that a rather small depiction of love? In Solomon’s writings, love is large and is intertwined with seasons.

From Ecclesiastes ~ To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven ~

3:5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.

3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

From Song of Solomon

2:4 He has taken me to the banquet hall, and his banner over me is love.

2:7 I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

The wisteria vines on my pergola are barren right now; they respond to the seasons. If they leaf out too soon, they won’t withstand the freezing temperatures. The same is true of the weigela and willow bushes. They are safe in their dormancy, optimally adapted to their winter environment. Soon, it will be spring and buds will form. As the temperature warms, their flowers and leaves will emerge. Their time will come.

Your spring and summer will come too.

Song of Solomon 2:11 See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. 12 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

In all seasons God is with you, loving you, protecting you, and caring for you. He has not forgotten you. Your spring and summer will come.

February 9, 2016 by cindigale

Ocean, What Ocean?

“I’ve long felt it necessary to be sufficiently hard-nosed in order to survive psychologically through life but something inside tells me that sensitivity is just as important. Without it, without empathy, the world would be an impossibly harsh place. ” – Paul Fischer

Paul is a Londoner now living in Croatia. I am a lifelong American. You, as a reader of this blog, join others from a hundred countries on six continents. At a glance it seems the greater our geographical and cultural divide, the less likely any of us would relate. But life, and how we cope with it, is often a challenge for us all. Supposing there are others in varied states of misery who might like some company, Paul and I are letting you eavesdrop on our recent exchange of emails:

Hi Cindi,

Yesterday, destiny decreed that I should carry a sick kitten to the local vet. It had arrived at a friend’s house and was clearly in trouble. The vet tried all he could but found it had eaten rat poison and, despite all the drips, medicines and medical paraphernalia, the kitten suffered an agonising death on the vet’s table. I guess the person who put down the poison in a residential area cared little for local cats. I was upset, teary eyed and not a little angry.

This kitten’s plight got through my outer protective shield and rattled my erstwhile comfortable existence. This was a surprise to me. Like most, I’d developed a hide sufficiently tough to withstand the regular barrage of negative influences to which we are all subjected. So why now? Why this cat? What was so different about this event that my self-preserving armour was pierced so easily? It’s not as if I hadn’t seen or read far worse. Was this the straw to break the camel’s back? This made me think about the volume, regularity and severity of other recent events to confront me. I started a mental list, yes, that’s boring, but what else could I do? Within five minutes and without thinking about it deeply, I found I was able to regurgitate these, all from the past week or so …

ISIL had set fire to a building and burnt to death dozens of people trapped inside, normal village people. Thirty seven people had drowned off the Greek coast having paid a lot of money to ‘agents’ to ship them in unsuitable boats across an unforgiving sea. Saudi executed a few dozen people for, in many cases, saying things the rulers didn’t like. Boko Haram had killed dozens of people in villages in east Africa and enslaved goodness knows how many others. Black rhinos are now gone, poached to extinction. A new disease (Zika) has appeared which threatens to flood parts of the world with damaged babies. The nutjobs of North Korea want to send a rocket up. Syria, Afghanistan Libya are at various stages of tearing themselves apart with the usual accompanying death and suffering. Zimbabwe and Eritrea are in the grip of a drought and we all know what will follow soon. Schengen is probably dead.

There are any number of on-going situations which cause me grief. There’s a semi-submerged island of trash in the Pacific, mostly plastic, bigger than Texas. The Black sea is effectively dead due to chemicals from European farms. Japan hunts whales for scientific research. VW was caught cheating about the noxious gases their cars pump into the atmosphere and, I suspect, all the others are doing something similar. Billions of pigs, chickens and cattle live their lives in cramped cages without a single day of reprieve. Billions of animals are killed in a savage and inhuman manner because of some rules written by men hundreds of years ago. The world’s wildlife population is diminishing rapidly due to human activity unless there is a profit to be had. There are more coal and oil power stations now than ever before. 95% (my guess) of countries are run by people interested only in their own interests. Slavery and the exploitation of women and children thrive as ever they did in primitive times.

This is not a thesis, I don’t have the intention to make a definitive list of the world’s ills. However, I’m starting to conclude that I must learn to harden my heart because the world is mostly a very bad place and not-at-all how I’d hoped it would be, or hide myself away and engage only in a delusional fluffy bunny existence filled with candy and ice cream. Oh, and healthy happy kittens.

Dear Paul,

You nailed it, with eloquence. I was at a friend’s home yesterday for his help with a project, and we talked over lunch afterward. Of all the troubles that are overwhelming him — terrible, life-changing troubles — he was most bothered yesterday by the recent discovery of a pile of pheasants on an acquaintance’s property. “He calls himself a hunter, and that’s okay if he used what he killed for food, but … beautiful pheasants … killed for what?”

It really bothered him. And me. My response was, “People. If we could only get rid of people it wouldn’t be so bad here,” and we laughed but we were half-serious.

When I was very young, I assumed the world was a bigger version of my little one: happy, secure and safe. TV burst my bubble one day with a commercial showing starving children in Africa — you know, the ones with flies on their faces and distended bellies. I sat cross-legged in front of the image, and thought, “That could be me. I could have been born there. Why do I have food and safety and they have that?” Compounding my little revelation of the real world, was that nobody seemed to care about the babies with flies on their faces and distended bellies. What was this unfair world?

Of course it only got worse the longer I lived. I’ve had my “fight” knocked down like you experienced today, and holed up afterward in what I call a marshmallow-and-pudding existence. But not for long. Even when I don’t want it to, the little fighter in me bounces back and starts tackling that big bad world I so often despise. With each rebound I’m less willing to waste my efforts in the wrong places, and only want to relate with the world where it’s on the “building up” end of things, never on the “tearing down” end. Who knows, maybe if enough of us do that we can regain ground from those hell-bend on destruction.

Thank you, Cindi. I knew our kindred spirits are close enough that you would instantly understand.

You are an irreplaceable friend, Paul. And an excellent writer. I think your words should be shared with as many people as possible; surely many people would identify and feel less alone, knowing someone out there feels the same.

Maybe our emails would fit nicely into your blog, one wounded heart comforted by another – across the oceans and across the widest of theological divides.

So we did just that, as evidence that coping with life is a universal challenge. Though it may not seem so, you’re not the only one with the thoughts or emotions you have — someone somewhere is experiencing the same. I propose that when you’ve sufficiently recovered from whatever has knocked you down, you get back out there in this world we share and overcome evil with good — one day at a time, one deed at a time, one soul at a time — across the oceans and widest of divides.

February 8, 2016 by cindigale

When Roads End, Bridges Appear

Cindi Gale

I love the book of Ruth. It’s a story of devotion — Ruth’s devotion to her mother-in-law; Naomi’s devotion to Ruth; Boaz’s devotion to both; and God’s devotion to them all.

When Naomi and her two Moabite daughters-in-law were all widowed in the country of Moab, Naomi determined to return to her hometown in Bethlehem, Judah. Alone.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”When Naomi realized that…

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February 3, 2016 by cindigale

The Strength of You

For those who repeatedly are dissatisfied, frustrated, minimized, or controlled by people you are in relationship with …

It seems to me the people who are accepted most easily into existing group or relationship dynamics are the ones who comply sweetly, or who most-fully adapt to other people’s unspoken expectations. Often that means the most compliant are taken advantage of or influenced by the least ethical.

Also wronged by unrighteous relationships, are those of you who don’t have “sweet compliance” in your natures, but who quench your thoughts and feelings in order to be accepted. When you’re a thinking, strong, independent, goal-oriented person, but also are social, care about people, and will reflexively sacrifice self for others … it’s a difficult combo. Your denial of self and compliance to wrongs comes at a cost — you’ve sold your soul, so-to-speak, to achieve harmony with others.

At some point, you subconsciously realize your loss of self, and try to restore it without losing relationships. Sometimes it can be done, sometimes it can’t, not because of anything you’ve done or didn’t do, but because you can’t control another person’s reaction to the changes in you.

For those who need examples: A thing I often experience in social expectations is a demand we be “nice” in the face of insensitivity, insults, rejection, or injustice. But what if I don’t feel sweetness or apathy in response to injustice? What if I object to it? What if I feel angry about it? Am I allowed to express that? Frankly, as a woman, and as a Christian woman even more-so, I can’t object without being labeled something nefarious by onlookers in our “must be sweet” society. So I stuff who I am, comply to avoid rejection, and suffer silently in my resultant inner turmoil.

Too often, our options are:

Sell out who you are, withold your honest feelings, and deny them to conform to demanding people whose behaviors are infringing on you or others.
Express yourself honestly, and be rejected or made to feel guilty or wrong for your feelings, thoughts, or viewpoints.

These are not great options. Hence the compounded agitation that erupts within. It’s a natural agitation, with valid causes. Can it be exaggerated by conditions such as erratic hormone levels, long-term stress, or sleep deprivation? Maybe, but probably not to the degree that those alone explain your inner conflict, not when there are a plethora of valid causes going on in your life. Your emotions may very well be on-point and reasonable, the appropriate response to wrongdoing by others when you’re prevented from changing the circumstances.

So, is there another option than the inadequate ones listed above? One that doesn’t further wrong yourself, in order to be most effective in overcoming evil with good on this Earth?

There is, and it’s a win/ win for everyone. It takes time, but it’s so worth it …

So now, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith in his promises, we can have real peace with him because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. ²For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be.

Romans 5: 1-2 Living Bible (TLB)

Prioritize who you are as a person for awhile. Ask God to help you recognize your strengths, identify what has always been YOU in your character and desires of life … the things in you that He approves of … those things that are right and true … the person He intended. Take the time needed to discover, develop, and cement who you were meant to be.

Accept that person. Settle into who you are. Make sure you protect that person from morphing for others. Once you’re strong enough to withstand outside forces, THEN see what happens with relationships.

That will prevent your needs or wants from becoming manipulable traps and landing you in subpar relationships. Let your settled, content-with-self PERSON land you in relationships instead.

To do that, you have to know who you are, accept who you are, and protect who you are. The more secure you become, the more confidently (and gently!) you can deal with other people, even in their wrongful behaviors.

In other words, the outcome of becoming settled in who you are benefits others, too – you end up being able to do what is needed in each case: calmly advocate for yourself in some cases; generously overlook behaviors in other instances; bring an end to relationships when you have to, but with understanding and without guilt; or, in some cases, stay and help others out of their own reactive, abrasive insecurities.

You need to be who God made you to be. If you’ve had to morph who you are for the acceptance of people, you need time to reflect, and become all that God has had in mind for you to be.

January 29, 2016 by cindigale

Spring Is Coming

When your memories are greater than your dreams, you’ve already begun to die. – Eugene May

A mindset doesn’t happen accidentally. It takes a conscious effort to view today as temporal, and stay hopeful for tomorrow.

The present can be overwhelming, a metaphorical season of drought, harsh winter, or severe flooding. You might find yourself hampered by frustrating or debilitating conditions.

Or, maybe you were overcome by your yesterdays. Cumulative trauma, failures, tragedies, or injustices had an affect on your outlook. Bad events outnumbered the good, enough to induce an expectation of more bad ahead. Sometime during all that hardship, your dreams were buried.

It’s understandable that people surrender dreams and default to memories to fill the void. There are few things more excruciating than rallying to try again, to hope again, to end the vicious cycle, only to be met with more disappointment. When dreams cause pain, memories offer solace.

But, When your memories are greater than your dreams, you’ve already begun to die.

The American pioneers plowed land for a purpose: for food, for survival. It was hard work to break the sod, plant a crop, and keep the plot from reverting to prairie. As long as they worked the land, they improved their odds for an ample harvest. If they quit, the surrounding indigenous plants encroached until the farmed plot succumbed.

It takes work to maintain a healthy mindset, too. If you don’t keep your dreams and hopes for a good future alive, your mind can be overtaken by your past. Instead of forging the best possible future, you can cause your own stagnancy. Instead of being a plowed field able to support a healthy crop, yours can revert to weeds.

Genesis 8:22 (ESV) “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Keep expecting, so when your drought, flooding, or winter ends — as they always do — your sod is already broken, inertia is overcome, and your momentum is forward.

Keep expecting, so when your spring arrives, you are primed and ready to fully engage in it.

¹¹See! The winter is past;
    the rains are over and gone.
¹²Flowers appear on the earth;
    the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
    is heard in our land.
¹³The fig tree forms its early fruit;
    the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
    my beautiful one, come with me.

(Song of Songs, 2:11-13, NIV)

Video January 26, 2016 by cindigale

Faith Wins Its Crown

You will never learn faith in comfortable surroundings. God gives us His promises in a quiet hour, seals our covenants with great and gracious words, and then steps back, waiting to see how much we believe.

“He then allows the Tempter to come, and the ensuing test seems to contradict all that He has spoken. This is when faith wins its crown.

“This is the time to look up through the storm, and among the trembling, frightened sailors declare, “I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.”

(Acts 27:25) – L.B. Cowman, “Streams in the Desert”

wave over boat, edit for blog

Faith is not a sense, nor sight, nor reason,

but simply taking God at His word.

Christmas Evans

Youtube license holder of this video is Danwill.

January 23, 2016 by cindigale

Truth Is Our Friend

Nobody likes unwanted news. We don’t want to believe that a diagnosis is dire, or our behaviors are destructive. We don’t like to hear that someone important to us is not who we thought they were — we won’t accept that a person we’re invested in is a thief, a traitor, an adulterer, or an abuser. Some of us will do anything to avoid unwanted truths like these.

To cope personally, or to save face publicly, we spin or outright deny the facts — it’s remarkable how spectacularly we pull off mental contortionism in our quest to disguise truth.

Which is silly if you stop and think about it. No amount of distortion, denial, justification, deflection, or delusionment will ever change truth. Like it or not, truth is what it is.

Isn’t it a marvel that people who initially choose deceit out of shame or inability to cope, quickly progress to actually believing their own lies? They developed habits of deceitfulness, and expect others to adopt their deluded thinking. They slipped unaware into a lifestyle of fabricating, then wonder why they are off-putting to others. Their relationships, home, work, and social lives suffer. Ever-so-insidiously, their physical and mental health are also impacted. Persistence in untruths only compounded their troubles.

All of that web of entanglement could have been avoided. The truth would have set them free, and kept them free, had they chosen that route. As difficult as it seemed, even those truths they despised were best acknowledged and dealt with.

The good news is, it’s never too late to start fresh. And none of us has to do it alone — God will come alongside to face even the most agonizing of truths. The benefits of trusting him to do so are immeasurable, including freedom from mental and emotional turmoil. If we want and allow him to, he will transform our tangled thinking into healthy truthfulness.

He will accomplish it in a way and at a speed that is best for each of us. If we need to slowly come face-to-face with painful, difficult facts, he’ll do it gradually. If we need swift and full immersion in unmitigated reality, he’ll do that instead. He knows us intimately, and much, much more than we know ourselves — if we let him, he’ll improve our lives. He’ll personalize his perfect intervention, knowing and understanding why and when we accumulated our dysfunctions.

Let God peel back the layers of amassed issues that were caused by self-, or other-inflicted lies. Wait on him. Be at peace with not always understanding everything as he exposes and corrects wrong-thinking, and aids in developing factual, healthy right-thinking in its place.

Trust that he is at work upending the chaos that chronic lies caused, for our long-term good. That’s the truth of it — truth is always our friend.

John 8:32 – “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Romans 12:2 – Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Philippians 4:19 – And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.