WHAT DO YOU WANT?

What if you trusted in God and he gave you everything you wanted? It is good to trust in the Lord, but is it really good to get everything your heart desires even if it is not really good for you. I submit to you that we do have free choice and a choice to choose what is good for us as well as what is bad for us. “However, personal freedom has to do with a decision to protect the heart, mind, and body from evil influences?” CHARLES STANLEY Several years ago I wanted what I wanted and I didn’t care about being that obedient to GOD and his positive rules for my life. I didn’t realize that his tenets were not put in place to stop me from having fun in my life, but to protect my heart and soul. I only sought him when I was hurting. I took him off the shelve for my benefit. I didn’t realize I needed to keep him always in my life. And I was to take God permanently off of the shelve and obey his commandments. And that there could be value to me in living a positive life. This reasoning became apparent when a boyfriend that I thought would become a permanent fixture in my life suddenly dumped me. This was to be a permanent relationship with marriage as the conclusion. Heading off to my local church, I sought solace and comfort from God and felt so helpless and hurting. Upon reaching the entrance to the chapel a middle age woman accosted me. “So happy to have you here, she blurted. Welcome, Welcome, God is good,” She exclaimed, and then she quoted moving words and scripture that I wasn’t interested in hearing or willing to listen too. This was one of the reasons I had neglected coming to church in the first place. People always accosting me trying to save me and wanting to espouse their favorite reasons to convince me to love and obey the LORD. Didn’t she see that I was hurting? Did she not have any compassion? Just a religious nut, I thought. She then told me that when she was hurting she recited the 23rd PSALM sometimes over and over perhaps 100 times. Oh lardy, I though this woman is crazed. Didn’t she see my pain and anguish? What about me, me and me? Then she directed me to my seat. She said “The 23RD PSALM is so wonderful especially for me. You see I have three months to live. I have been diagnosed with an incurable type of CANCER!” I paused…….. I WAS WORRIED about a boyfriend dumping me? …How could I be so SELFISH?

Fast forward years later. I have had many trials and conflicts in my life some near death escapes, but I too wake up in the middle of the night repeating the 23RD PSALM and it peacefully gets me back to sleep. I often say it during the day when I am accosted by evil. It begins… THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD I SHALL NOT WANT! I CHALLENGE YOU to Learn the rest of it for yourself. It will comfort you. It is HEALING! A footnote…Is it good for GOD to give you what you want? The boyfriend that dropped me has since had three destructive and unhealthy marriages and divorces. Now my heart is calmer because God had a better plan for me. And he is permanently OFF THE SHELVE AND FOREVER IN MY LIFE! “WHEN I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL… HIS SWORD AND HIS STAFF THEY COMFORT ME!”

WASH CALORIES AWAY WITH LAUGHTER

With so much unhappiness in the world why should one laugh? I was told if I could count calories, every time I laughed it would consist of 40 calories. So that means if I laugh 10 times that would be 400 calories or equal to a gigantic dish of caramel ice cream. That seems like a ticket to happiness. This is important to me because gaining weight is a real issue in my life. So now I’ve been on a diet for three days and so far I have gained three pounds. What’s up with that?? I should have laughed about that and used up some calories, but instead I went to the refrigerator and ate a cold ice coconut bar to relieve the stress of the weight gain. This morning I woke up to the reflection in the mirror of a large red bozo nose. This could only be my punishment for ingesting too much sugar. Still I know I must laugh because after all laughing increases the endorphins and helps the immune system. Then I can lose weight. But how can you laugh at a big bozo nose staring back at you in the mirror? I decided to just ignore it and concentrate on laughing and on losing weight. When my friend called me I told her about laughing and burning calories. She got angry with me and told me she was not overweight and hung up on me. When the phone rang again, I thought it was Jane calling back, but it was my other friend Linda. I told her about my new laughing diet and she said she should try it or she would never fit into her new shorts before the fourth of July.

Today my husband got annoyed with me. He said, “Why are you laughing all the time when nothing seems to be funny?” So I decided to give him relief and went shopping for groceries for dinner. When I arrived at the store, they had just put out fresh loaves of French bread on a nearby rack. I knew I couldn’t buy it, but I thought if I bought it for my husband maybe he wouldn’t be so angry about all my laughing. Then in checking out of the food lane, I told the checker “I hope I can get home before I open the French bread and eat it.” She said well you could have just stood by it and smelled it. I told her I used to do that when I went shopping with my first husband in the bakery section. He would scream “ what I are you doing?” I told him I was sniffing and he said, “STOP IT, YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME”. She laughed. I then told her about the laughing diet. Forty calories a laugh, “wow I am going to be laughing all the time”, she said. “Yes, I said, as I left the store you will be so skinny the next time I see you”.

FAITH IS LAUGHING UP A STORM

“ A Merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones” Proverbs 17:22

Humor after all is impossible without faith. Because one is able to smile through their tears & laugh despite tragedy! Recently I got a new I-Phone. I was so excited that I got up early one morning to play with it and set all the applications into motion. Unexpectedly as I was sifting through emails etc. I saw this horrible looking woman. Her blonde hair was dry and unkempt it looked like a bird nest and her face looked wrinkled and puffed. Oh my gosh, I thought what an ugly woman? She was wearing crinkled old blue sweat pants and top similar to mine.

GOOD LORD MAN!

Oh Lardy! I then realized IT WAS ME! I had hit the FACETIME BUTTON on accident. Lardy, Lardy, I vowed never to use that feature again and to this day it is marked, DO NOT USE!

My husband talked me into buying a long blonde wig so that I could be much more sexy. When I tried it on, he said I looked like a women of the evening. When I tried out for a Senior Center event wearing it, before the performance I was shifted offstage by the director. She told me I was too sexy and not to bend over in my short nurse outfit, because she didn’t want any of the senior men to have a heart attack during my performance.

I fell down the stairs! and I didn’t need to dress up for Halloween this year. I had one large black eye so I went as a pirate! My black eye lasted for over a week and the reactions were astonishing. While in Big Lots a man screamed at me to DIVORCE THE CREEP.

I fell down the stairs, I replied. Yah I know he answered! DIVORCE THE CREEP! At my fitness club the Manager noticed me and told me He would beat up my husband for slugging me. I told him I fell down the stairs! He replied Yaw right!

Last week I chipped two front teeth. Yaw! Right before Christmas. All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. When I got up from the Dentists chair I had Chair Hair. You know Chair hair a big gap in the back of your head of hair. I looked like the woman on FACE TIME. Then the dentist said, “Wow you have such a small mouth.” I told him that was funny….. my husband said I had a big mouth.

When I left the dentists I went to Walmart. I couldn’t speak because of the Novocaine and this guy Yelled. DIVORCE THE CREEP. Then in the checkout line the cashier told me I had chair hair.

In the face of tragedy I was able to find some funny. Today I will prove to the world that I am a believer! I will laugh up a storm in the middle of one. I hope you will too. With GOD all things are possible.

HAVE A DELIGHTFUL LAUGHABLE DAY!

You are Loved!

TEA FOR TWO
GOD & YOU

angie_couch

LOVE

LOVE is stronger, love is greater
Your love awakens me
We can fill our hearts with his love
Let us encounter his love
Let His love surrounds us
We need his presence

We need his love

These are words from a popular hymn sang in praise at church. Yet we sometimes fail to believe that God really loves us and that his love is deeper than our wishes for Romantic love.

God seems so far away when we are dealing with a problem or our hearts are broken. Yet, if he sometimes can’t seem to reach us he sends special people into our paths. Or we run across a scripture or message that speaks to our dilemma.

Several years ago a young girl was alone and felt so unloved. Checks were in the mail from her part time job, but there really wasn’t more than $10 in her checking account. She had drifted away from her childhood belief in God. I don’t really need him I can take care of myself. She didn’t realize that circumstances would change so quickly and her lucrative job would disappear.

There wasn’t any food in her refrigerator and even her small dogs had refused to eat the last of the steamed macaroni she had boiled for them.

She was hungry and nowhere to turn. Flipping through the T.V. channels she heard the message; the spirit of the Lord is around you. You need him. Let him come into your heart. She knelt down near her bed and called out to God in the only prayer she could vaguely remember from her childhood!

What happened to that God of her childhood?

What happened to her spiritual believes of his perfect love?

As she knelt and prayed, she felt a miracle happen and realized the Spirit of the Lord was near. She fell asleep.

Awakening the next morning she realized a difference. She felt a new presence. She felt his love. From that moment she decided she would pursue a relationship with her heavenly GOD. Perhaps then things would change.

At the mailbox that day a strange letter arrived with a beautiful card addressee unknown. As she opened it, to read a $100 bill fell to the ground. A miracle happened now. The spirit of the Lords is here. The evidence was all around. And there was money for food, and there was room for God in her life again.

She whispered to herself as she headed up the steps to her apartment.

He is Alive!
He is alive