Author: Justine

Strength to do the Impossible

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About 24 hours ago the house needed a good cleaning for an appraisal.

It has been a while since I have cleaned much of it. Things keep happening.

Looking at the basement stairs, muddy footprints remind of the water pouring in our basement.

Under the stairs, feathers and toys gather dust reminding me of our daughter’s cats who have moved out.

Upstairs, the warmth of summer compels our dogs to shed. Their hair combines with dirt tracked in from my shoes when I garden.

I add to the mess with piles. A learned action from having scoliosis.

We have too much stuff, and no place to put it: feeling stuck.

God gave me the ability to tackle the mess.

I was awake and busy for a whole 23 hours. The last 8 hours was spent cleaning, putting things away, boxing stuff, sweeping, moping, and vacuuming. Fitbit tracked 8000 steps from midnight to noon.

This all goes against what my doctor says, “You are NOT SUPPOSE TO help your daughter move or work in your garden! YOU HAVE SCOLIOSIS!”

GOD SAYS DIFFERENT!

God is Good! Smile!

Save the Children

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 I try to open a conversation with the women in front of me, asking questions as we stand in line.

She answers my question and turns back to the line. When I ask what movie she is there to see, she asks about the movie I am seeing.

It took me a bit to describe The Sound of Freedom I started to think about  the man who saved the kids and how he started, mistakenly I said the DEA instead Homeland Security.

My next thought was, “How horrible situation is at the southern border with all the small unaccompanied young children! Who sends a three or ten year old on that trip?”

I keep my mouth shut because of politics, but when the movie starts I started crying and am convicted of not opening my mouth.

LORD HELP me to ALWAYS speak out about the life of a child being trafficked!

God is Good! Man is not!

A Gift from God

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Today our daughter brought my husband and I out for an early birthday dinner.

We pick up our daughter, check out the improvements to her house, pet the cats, and leave.

We arrive, order, and are having a wonderful time when a couple walks into the restaurant and sits down.

There is something familiar about her face.

I’m trying not to stare. Do we know each other? Finally recognition!

I get up to get a hug. It has been many years and much life has happened.

What is the chance that we happen to be at the same restaurant at the same time sitting so we can see each other?

In case you notice in the picture, they received food while I got my hug. I sat down to and empty plate. My order was forgotten. It’s my birthday!

So what are the chances that we meet? Only God could time it so perfectly!

God Is So Very Good!

Mom The Hero

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I have been watching everything I find about the movie.

“The Sound of Freedom!”

It is done excellently!

https://www.angel.com/tickets/sound-of-freedom!

Go see the movie.

This could  have been my life! But Mom fought to find us!

It wasn’t a thing then, but Mom was controlled by her husband.

She often said, ” Every time I made a friend we moved. Often money for milk was found in his pants doing laundry.”

She also said, “The truth always changed. What was TRUTH yesterday, was not TRUTH today”

Mom said,”It was good to have him leave, I might have ended up in the psych ward. I never wanted you kids taken.”

Arriving home to an empty house, She waited, “Justine will call, she knows the number!”

When I didn’t call she packed up the house and took a bus to Minnesota. She made an appointment with the governor. He listened as she cried demanding help.

“It is not illegal for a father to take his children.”

Regrouping, she found a job and hire detectives. They found us a year later.

The first plan was to kidnap us back, but it didn’t work.

This led to court and three days on the witness stand being grilled. This affected her so profoundly that she could never again lead any group.

Mom’s lawyer didn’t call Dad to the stand, instead he gave the judge the nine page explanation of why Dad left with us.

She was awarded custody with one condition.

We had to be out of the state that day!

Out of school to the airport with possessions in paper bags.

Our flight took us to her parents farm. It was our saving grace.

Her parents thought it was best to go back to her husband, being a divorced women with kids was not good. She couldn’t even buy a vehicle without her husband or father’s signature.

Forty years later she called, “Why couldn’t you understand what I went through?”

“When

“You were only seven years old, you couldn’t understand!”

The day Mom died, the Pastor called, “What was your most important memory?”

“She came and got us!”

She saved my life.

God is Very Good!

How To Become

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I have become the person that walks in LOVE, by spending time in The Word of God Daily.

Lifting people up, and seeing the ones who feel unseen is the passion for my life.

Talking  to God every day is my favorite pastime. He is my friend in the lonely times, my protector in the dangerous times, my provider when I don’t know where the money for tomorrow is coming from, my companion, and my guide all day every day!

John 15:7-8 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

The archaic definition for abide is Live and Dwell.

The more I abide in the Word of God, it washes my soul. Abiding for me takes reading it out loud so I hear it also!

Meditating on a passage day and night erase the negative thought patterns and chase out  darkness filling the recesses of my mind. Seldom is the darkness able to enter my thoughts.

The more I meditate on the Word the more Joy bubbles up from the inside: It is Life.

Don’t allow depression and darkness to rule.

Choose Life and Live in Love! Amen!

Sonship and Daughtership

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Knowing we are sons and daughters of the Father, will transform our lives completely!

Twenty years ago we move to Kentucky and start a new church. They ask me to lead the children’s music.

For our first Easter Service we have wonderful music that includes the adult choir and the congregation. I am leading the children, the adult choir sings, and I raise my hands asking the congregation to stand and sing.

The side my family is sitting, stands! My side sits and frowns! I try again, they grudgingly rise and sing.

It was the most confusing thing I have ever encountered in church.

 Later I get a phone call from church, “We need you to come down and talk.”

“I really don’t want to.”

“If you don’t come then you can no longer teach Sunday school.”

My world crashes!

Twenty years earlier, I am 21 attending a church with a college youth group. My accident occurs during a trip with this youth group.

After church with people surrounding us, the pastor asks, “Are you having sex with your fiance?”

“Yes.”

“Then I cannot conduct your wedding.”

“Why not?”

“If you have sex before marriage then you will have sex with the mailman or the milkman or anyone else in your life.”

Humiliation fills me, I ride my bike back across town as fast as I can, so alone.

Over time I grow in knowledge of “Whose I am!”

When I am asked to meet because of a problem. I am able to go with no fear.

Walking in the Righteousness of  Jesus makes me the daughter of the Father! He fills me with SELF WORTH.

A leader of a group calls to have me come to meet. I am able to go with NO FEAR!

Again, I am being told, I am not allowed to continue!

I am not destroyed.

      Something has happened to me!

            I AM DIFFERENT!

                   JOY FILLS ME!

                          God IS So Very Good!

Guidance and Provision

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The smoke from the wild fires has plagued our area for days.

“God help them fight the fire and bring a wind to blow the smoke away!”

A new smoke alert sounded, I notice our county is not mentioned. Hopeful, I walk outside to check my peas and raspberries.  Thankfully the air is good and I decide to work outside.

Picking peas was easy but, my raspberries are a mess.

I have a God thought: Less is more.

With emotional ties to the raspberries, I try a new thing.  I cut branches with tiny fruit and it opened up space to let air in to dry.

I hear thunder! “Time to head in, but let me get just a bit more.”

Thunder a second time. “OK, I’m heading in.”

Checking the radar it looks like the rain is an hour away so I decide to run. Listening for thunder and not hearing any I run three miles.

The sun has not set it’s time to weed the flowerbed.  Noticing pink in the clouds, I head to the cemetery for sunset pictures and I notice the smoke returning to the area.

“Thank You God for the thunder that stopped my weeding and clearing the rain so I could run breathing good air.”

The Sound of Freedom

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“The Sound of Freedom”

Have you seen the adds for it?

It is opening on July 4, 2023, and they are wanting people to pre-order tickets to open up more screens.

It was over five years ago when I first heard about it and it caught my heart back then.

Why do I care so much? It is just a movie, right?

The difference is the truth about it. So many kids are trafficked for sex, slavery or harvesting their organs. IT will soon be the biggest evil enterprise unless we work together to change it!

I connect to it because of my life. The seven year old girl in me cries out for someone to rescue her. Never let this happen to anyone else, ever again.

IT IS NOT a victimless crime. Children are people. Society suffers when this stuff goes on. When these children survive they are very broken people who need help.

The Good thing is God is Excellent at healing broken people.

God Shines His Light In the Dark and the dark has to flee!

Help us shine a light and change the world. Google it and get tickets.

God Is Very Good!

 

More Grace

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Waking with hope to start typing my book, but the day chips at the hope.

Pain causes me to lay down. I try everything I know but nothing is working. How wonderful it is to fall asleep and wake with no pain.

I start to make breakfast trying to rid the bad thoughts filling my mind when my phone rings.

A ministry calling, ” Happy Birthday, is there anything we can pray for.”

The phone call was perfect timing to remember God is still working in my life.

We take the dogs for a short walk but the smoke is bothersome. Wildfire smoke has made its presence here. There was a moment today when the sun came out and fresh air appeared. I walk outside. Finding peas and raspberries ready to be picked, I grab bowls and get busy.

Later in the evening I walk the dogs over a mile and most of it I cover my mouth with my shirt.  I do get my 10,000 steps.

I lay down again wait for the pain to leave trying to think of a way to move, and God says, “Take a bath!”

Hope grows and pain leaves. I start the dishwasher to heat the water. Sitting up I pray, read my Bible and Praise before getting into the tub.

No book writing today.

The feeling of God’s Grace fills me with Peace. He Knows my joy in gardening.

God Is Good!

New Beginning

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While I was making breakfast today, God dropped a new beginning to the book I need to write.

While Bart and I were walking, I pulled up my app to tell him how many days in a row I have been posting. Today is day 3o. It is a God thing!

Eighteen months ago God helped me get 10,000 steps for 30 days. My normal body has always shut down at least once a week. Stringing together days is a miracle.

The first 30 turned into 103 days of 10,000 steps. Many of those days I couldn’t move until about 8 P.M.. This has become the time when my body becomes alive making a run for the goal possible.

Last year on my first 30 day mark, I started running at least a mile every day. It continued for 73 days, ending with the string of 10,000 steps.

The second 30 day mark is when I started sitting at my computer and typing something every day. This trained me to get comfortable typing.

My speed has tripled and I am clicking on things with no fear of breaking something. The only time I missed typing was for Dad’s funeral.

I am at another 30 days mark. I Believe I need to keep daily posting, Making time to write the book is important.

My house and gardens still have much work needed and my raspberries are ripening already. HELP JESUS! HELP!

LORD I NEED GUIDANCE! Less pain would be good LORD! Amen!

GOD IS GOOD!