Look At Me!

Look! ChewChew ....ChewChew.....look! Look at me puppydog. Look, take your picture! ...Chewy... look! [Seven,Eight, Nine,Ten pictures later]
Okay! Gooooood boy!
You want your good boy snack?
Good puppy...

Living goes on in Alaska with my little opinionated shihtzu. I love it!

Curses and Blessings

"You don't know anything!"

"You will never amount to anything"

"You are an idiot!"

"I wish you were never born!"

"You are ugly!"

"I hope you have a kid just like yourself!"

These according to Wellspring Ministries, are curses. The opposite of blessings. You all might have to put up with some of my thoughts still coming from the seminar that we attended in February. :-) Just skip this blog if you don't want to read about this.

Throughout the years I have heard words like these spoken by parents and sadly, I have said some of them myself. (I did not say my parents spoke all these words to me.) I am repeating some words learned from others talking about curses at the seminar too.

Definition of curse:
curse (noun)

a prayer or invocation for harm or injury to come upon one

something that is cursed or accursed

evil or misfortune that comes as if in response to imprecation(cursing) or as retribution

a cause of great harm or misfortune

"Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest."Proverbs 26:2

"For you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others." Ecclesiastes 7:22

It is sobering to learn that as parents/leaders/spouses we can bring down "great harm", "misfortune", or "injury" to our loved ones/friends by uttering mean words in retaliation during times when situations in our lives are not perfect.

I have told myself to cover my mouth, to shut it, before saying anything hurtful. I did't realize the power of words, especially words spoken in anger. I never realized the readiness of the Evil One to work out those angry suggestions in my childrens/friends lives.

I've asked God to forgive me, I have spoken sincerely to my children and others from my sorry heart and asked them to forgive me so this evil foothold can be removed from their lives and our relationship. I have also had to forgive myself for words I hurt others with.

I believe the tactic the devil uses in so many homes throughout the ages is to "divide and conquer". First he divides our bonds of caring, love, trust and puts division, strife and hatred in it's place. Mistrust. Suspicious thoughts. He fills us with insecurities about our value to one another ---so much every new day that we begin to believe his lies!

All lies I tell ya! Just stop in the middle of those feelings/thoughts and shout.... WHAT? That is NOT TRUE! Through the living blood of Jesus Christ you leave me now - you are a lying spirit! It will have to leave because of Jesus Christ, He gave us the victory!

Now to blessing. The opposite of cursing is blessing.

When we say things like, "you are doing well in school", "what a great job", "you are a good helper", "What a great uncle!" these are blessings. (Picture of Uncle Kris and Ashlee during a recent 4-wheeler/snowmachine ride).

I have read different beautiful blessings in poetry form too.

"God bless your heart."

"God bless you!" (After sneezing!)

"Be safe!"

The definition of blessing (noun): (Both,curse and blessing definitions, are from Websters.)

the act or words of one that blesses

approval, encouragement

grace said at a meal

to hallow or consecrate by religious rite or word

a thing conducive to happiness or welfare

(verb)to speak well of

(verb)to confer prosperity or happiness upon

There is much more to what we say than we give credit for, especially when we are in a position of some influence in others lives. I need to learn how to bring blessings and not curses into others lives. This has been a great lesson for me.

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." Romans 12:14

P.S. Much of what I say in my blog is said to Christians (but all are welcome to read). In order even understand God's words we need the Holy Spirit in our heart to help us. The Holy Spirit comes into our lives only after we believe that we are sinners and that God made the Way back to right standing with Him. We can only get to that place through the blood of Jesus Christ. One must believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, repent and walk/talk with God. Then the Helper (Holy Spirit) is dispatched into our own spiritual warzones and His control begins in our heart and lives, rather than the control the Evil spirit has had since Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden. Why blood? It is so disgusting! That is a whole other topic.

I hope you have a very good day and that your heart can understand God's love for you and your family today. That is a blessing from my heart to you! :-)

New Bag!

I just made this beaded bag. The colors are hard to see with this picture but you can sort of see it. It was not as big as the tooth fairy bag so seemed to go fast.

The colors are hematite and garnet red. It has 43 garnet gemstones worked into the strap and the fringe and pewter pressed glass bicones.

It is beautiful here in the Valley today. My husband Doug (who is healing quite well) and my son who gets a week off from his bus driving job for spring break invited me to join them where they were burning a pile of brush. We roasted moose weiners and enjoyed the SUN!

Update: I was looking at the shamrock this morning, it has flowers! Such a happy to grow plant!

If you are interested, I have been working on streaming the 2006 Native Musicale sponsored by the Anchorage Native New Life Fellowship. Today I was working on building a new Monday Night's Online for putting up the weekly Monday night meetings as soon as I can on Tuesdays. Listen to them sometime, the singing and the testimonies are very good!

Flawed Memory

I have been dealing with heart issues in the last four weeks. By heart issues I mean emotions.

I want to share this heart issue with my readers in hopes it will be helpful as you work with your daily issues.

Most times things we think about in our hearts are the things that have a major impact in our daily lives. They impact not only of ourselves but the ones we love the most too. Family and friends see and live with the results of our heart issues. We are even led to believe that these topics are not acceptable to cultivating friendships ---so many of us hold them in to ourselves and smile through our tears, don't we?

I wanted to share a story from my childhood today.

We traveled in a snowstorm to Anchorage and the Alaska Freedom Band practice yesterday and we saw many cars in the ditches. One car was overturned and sitting on it's roof, another on it's side. We are still getting snow as I type. So beautiful but treacherous too. The people and their cars will suffer the impacts of those accidents, they never will be the same as before the accidents happened.

Several weeks ago we attended two teaching sessions. First one was the Spiritual Warfare Gathering and then a week long seminar put on by Wellspring Ministries which was the I Found Freedom seminar.

Both were great teaching sessions. I have learned so much, mostly from the Wellspring Ministries and the teachings on forgiveness and repentance. Such great tools for dealing with "baggage" from the past. Baggage = impacts of sin in our lives. Whereever that sin came from, our own or a sin that someone else commited that forever clouds, tints, and changes our viewpoints of ourselves or of others.

Some of my baggage left me with feelings of being unaccepted by from my oldest brother, Don. One morning I sat thinking about "where did this ugly feeling come from?" I closed my eyes and prayer that God would reveal to me what I should deal with concerning this troublesome thought/feeling.

As I prayed I went clear back to the time I was climbing a broken down wall of my Dad's Shugak General Store building. I was five or six years old. As my leg slid down in between those boards, two nails cut and gouged my leg open. I screamed in pain then fell away from the wall I was desperately clinging to. It felt like my bone was going to break as all my weight hung on my calf.

I frantically turned my head towards the beach and saw Don standing there. In my memory he turned, looked at me then turned away. I believe that from that point the spiritual warfare has raged in my heart and mind. That memory was twisted and then used as fuel to feed the belief that I was not important to him and that Don did not care if I was ever hurt.

Yesterday I shared this with Don as I told him how I had prayed over this lifelong hurt. He listened to me then said, "Connie, I am the one that pulled you out of those boards."

I was so STUNNED and I still am! To know that I have lived with this flawed memory all my life has opened my spiritual eyes to the craftiness of my enemy, The Evil One, the Destroyer, the Liar, Satan, the Enemy of God!

The unseen spiritual war (whether you believe that it exists or not does not change the truth) is going on everyday. The war over my own and all peoples eternity. The war that strives to prevent and to break relationships with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The war that breaks up family relationships.

In this war, through the years the truth of my past was horribly twisted! My mind was blinded to the truth of the situation and I allowed a lie to twist and confuse my heart....everyday for years!!!!!

I am still reeling from this truth this morning.

When we are overcome by feelings of being unloved, unwanted, like we don't matter....we must ask ourselves, where is this feeling, this idea, this knowledge coming from ----in order to protect ourselves, our families, our relationships from this ugly enemy!

Our enemy, he accuses us day and night, day and night, day and night without getting tired of doing it! We get tired of fighting the fight so much faster! We get tired and then we believe lies. When we believe him he grabs that foothold in our thoughts and begins to wreak havoc, to conquer and divide our families, our friendship.... our husband and wife relationships!

He uses whatever we give him permission to use. All those years I gave him permission to lie about my brother saying that my brother hated me and did not care to have me in his life. I believed those lies and I became quiet. NOW....I am an old woman! I have wasted a life of believing that twisted story from my enemy.

All this to share what I hope will make you think differently about the troubles in your life then realize that when those thoughts are destroying your friendships and families ---- realize where they come from. They come from The Accuser, He wants to destroy your life. Kneel down and pray to God, thank Him for Jesus Christ making the Way for us to lead peaceful, joyful lives.

Forgiveness. Forgiveness to all ---not because they deserve it or even because they have asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness because the Lord, the One that loves us, He said to forgive.... 70 x 7... for the same offense! Not because we are such martyrs and good Christians and must do what is right, but because when we forgive, our enemy loses his hold over our thoughts and our hearts. When we forgive, the Lord comes and heals us and replaces hurts, bitterness, anger, jealousy, ________________, you fill the blank....

He replaces my hurts with peace and joy....longsuffering, gentleness.. kindness... even a loving brother.

"But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; let those also who love Your name be joyful in You. For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; with favor You will surround him as with a shield." Psalms 5:11,12