Wednesday, June 25, 2008

REAL LOVE

originally posted August 15, 2007



Real Love



I have been wanting to post this since yesterday. Bill has been on my mind a lot since he left a week ago. I've been thinking about how blessed I am to have married someone who takes my breath away every time our eyes meet.
I guess what got me to thinking about my feelings for him and this love we have found was a song by Rebecca St. James titled" Wait for Me." It is a song about abstinence til marriage which at first glance may not seem to fit us. We are both second-time marrieds. Both have sowed some fairly wild oats, both together and apart.


We both accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior in 2000 and our marriage went from being a good one to a marriage of deeper understanding, greater communication and a more profound love than I have ever known. Words cannot express the joy I feel when I hear his voice on the phone, smell his cologne on his pillow or receive his prayers for me and prayers over me. This is real love. REAL LOVE.

"Wait for Me," reminds me of the time we spend apart as he works offshore because honestly, when he comes home it is like seeing each other for the first time all over again. And wait for him I have, as has he....We wait for a month at a time, saving our spiritual and emotional intimacy only for one another, praying for each other while we're apart, for strength and for the time when we are back together again....and when we said til death do us part, we meant it with all of our hearts....


Darling did you know that I
I dream about you
Waiting for the look in your eyes
When we meet for the first time
Darling did you know that I
I pray about you
Praying that you will hold on
Keep your loving eyes only for me
I am waiting for
Praying for you darling
Wait for me too
Wait for me as I wait for you
I am waiting for
Praying for you darling
Wait for me too
Wait for me as I wait for you
Darling wait
Darling did you know that I dream about life together
Knowing it will be forever
I'll be yours and you'll be mine
And darling when I say
Till death do us part
I'll mean it with all of my heart
Now and always faithful to you
I am waiting for
Praying for you darling
Wait for me too
Wait for me as I wait for you
I am waiting for
Praying for you darling
Wait for me too
Wait for me as I wait for you
Darling wait
Now I know you may have made mistakes
But there's forgiveness and a second chance
So wait for me darling
Wait for me
Wait for me
"Wait for Me," ~~Rebecca St. James



Real Love
means we make mistakes and love our way through them
Real Love
means we allow our love for one another to cover a multitude of sins and a myraid of shortcomings
Real Love
means respect
Real Love
means being the mates God called us to be
Real Love
means forgiveness-true forgiveness where an account of wrongs is neither held nor nurtured
Real Love
means laughing together
Real Love
means unity
Real Love
means putting God and each other first, in that order
Real Love
means what we have is not in conflict with the Bible or the Ways of God-it is a Godly and blessed union.
Real Love
means understanding that this life of ours is not our own, that living only for ourselves and "living my life how only I choose" is not acceptable to God or one to another.
Real Love
is what I have with Bill and I am forever grateful to God for it.



Blessings, Ya'll


Robin

New People in My Life

New People in My Life


There seems to be a few of them....all sort of coming to the forefront of my days....Feels exciting and makes me a bit giddy with love for them. And I do love them.

Some of them have been around for a while and our lives are crossing lines pre-established by the nature of our contact. Others have just strolled into my life unannounced, like they were always meant to be there. Did I mention that I love them?

Cause I do. The beautiful thing about becoming who I am in Christ is that He put a fierce love for His people in me that defies my own understanding of my personal capacity to love others.

So I say I love you to some of them, knowing it makes me look sorta weird and foolish, yet knowing I mean it with all my heart because it's the way God remade me when I accepted His gift. I can see it when they look at me, when I say I love you, a flicker of uncertainty about my sincerity, then a split second of realization replaces it as they understand I am serous. and that it doesn't make sense on so many levels. Sometimes it makes them uncomfortable I think....maybe? or not, lol...But they seem to love me back. and it feels good.

How can you love people you don't really even know? God has to be in it. I look at pictures of their past, or listen to them describe things from their past and I wish so badly I had known them longer, that our bond was more substantive because of good and bad times spent together....Since we haven't had long periods of time I do my best to make the memories now. Be funny now. Laugh and cry with them now.Establish real life with them now because they are precious to me, a gift from God and I don't know how long I will be allowed to love them before our paths take separate roads and distance or circumstance lessen availability for togetherness.

New friends. Did I mention I love them????



Saturday May 10, 2008

My Enemy.....

My Enemy.....


does not wear shoes, or nail polish or a jacket when it's cold. My enemy does not ride a motorcycle, wear gang colors or get haircuts. My enemy has not ever sat in the recliner in my living room. My enemy is not related to me by blood or marriage or work in the next cubicle over.....My enemy does not sleep next to me in the bed at night or in the next bedroom down the hall....My enemy is not of flesh and blood but of the spirit....

Don't take my word for it..... God said it, not me:

Ephesians 6:12:12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Satan wants so badly for us to see people as our enemy and not him... because then he gets away with it..."it" being hurting our feelings, destroying our marriages, planting hatred, abuse and destruction....blowing apart families, the list just goes on and on.

My inlaws are not the enemy-satan is. My child's school teacher is not the enemy-satan is. And sometimes we do such a good job of allowing the enemy to work through us he doesn't HAVE to do anything, just sit back and let us roll with our own refusal to adhere to the Word.

Is God a liar? EMPHATICALLY NO! Then why do we act like this passage is not true and continue to treat people as our enemies and not the enemy as our enemy?

I know a couple of reasons why.

When we make people the enemy we don't have to feel as accountable for our own actions, thoughts and words.

We can hang on to victim mentalities and point the finger elsewhere while saying, "see?! See what so-and-so did to me?" Then we use that to excuse our own bad behavior-such as retaliation, unforgiveness, rebellion against authority-which the bible says, by the way, is as unto witchcraft in the eyes of the Lord.

We prefer people to be the enemy so we can justify our own bad behavior.When we make people the enemy we can avoid developing the fruit of the spirit.

We say we want to be fruitful but being fruitful is painful. It hurts.

Galatians 5:22-25:22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Does any of that look easy to come by? No. It is nearly impossible to love the unlovable. It is hard to have patience. Sometimes I hang on to my peace by a thread. Fruit of the spirit produces good behavior choices.

The opposite?

Hateful, Anxiety-ridden, impatient, unkind, bad/evil, unfaithful, rough, and unable to control one's self. It is important to understand that these are strongholds of the enemy. Again-not the people, but the principalities!

None of us have arrived but sometimes we are quick to excuse ourselves as not having arrived and even quicker to condemn those around us who have not arrived. As if our own behavior is of a different standard.

I MUST separate people from principalities.

I MUST separate the face of a human being, a creation of God, from the face of the enemy.

I need to hang on to Ephesians 6:12 the next time someone cuts me off in traffic and flips me the bird and remember it at the next family gathering.

I need to remember it when I am in a position to reach out to someone I have held on to in my heart as the enemy and all the while the enemy has stood right next to me laughing his head off because I didn't even know it was him that hurt me.

After reading this, lack of knowledge is no longer an excuse to walk in unforgiveness and to perish, taking out as many people around me as possible.

I cannot tell the Lord, "I didn't know! " Because now I know.

What am I going to do about it?

Acknowledge the enemy and then focus on God.

When it comes to the people around you, what would Jesus do?

Written April 11, 2006

Long Time No Typo

I forgot I had made this blog. I found it again when I received an invite to check out a dear friend's blog. so. Here it is. I may move my myspace blog here. Or some of the articles I have written here. Or I may do nothing for another six months. Who knows.



But it is started.





I'm just sayin.