Another Hobby .....?

     My daughter sent me some info regarding Altered Books, a subject I had heard of, was rather curious about, but had never really checked it out.  Until today.  I think I'm going to like it.
     I need another hobby like I need a hole in the head!  But hey, that's what 'creative' people do, right?  We create.  And a new way of doing so is always fun.  The trick is to find the time to 'do' all these different projects.  I'm good at starting .... but it sometimes takes me awhile to finish it!
     After I returned from my trip to Israel a few years ago (is it that long ago already???) I began a series of watercolours of different photos I had taken, thinking I'd like to do a calendar with them.  But I have yet to complete twelve watercolours in order to complete this project.  I think I have four done!



     It was put on hold while I wrote a book (GRAFTED IN), which is now completed, published, and available.
     A couple of years ago I was given a gift of a beautiful hand-made leather-bound book from Italy.  As it is definitely too beautiful to simply use as a journal, I began doing colourful calligraphy of Bible verses on its pages.  I have enjoyed this project, but have not yet filled the book.  One day I'll get back to it.  I do enjoy it, and am fairly pleased with the results.

     Another project I've been working on off and on is entering favourite quotes in another special book which has a wooden cover with leather binding - again, a book too beautiful to use as a simple journal.
     I also scrapbook.  The very first one I ever did was for my Dad's 90th birthday.  It was originally all in one volume, but it was so thick and unwieldy that it broke, so I have since put it into two separate volumes:  one of Dad's life, and the other of his kids and our families.  Since Dad passed away a few years ago, this special book is now in my possession.

     Right from the start I loved scrapbooking!  There is so much a person can do with all the embellishments, fancy papers, fabric, ribbons, buttons ..... and of course, pictures!  But a scrapbook is SO much more than a book of pictures!  It is a work of art which tells a story.
      Once Dad's book was done, I started working on an 8X8 one for myself.  That was fun.  It briefly tells my story.  I remember that the very first page I worked on was 'My Favourite Things', which I had begun listing long before I ever actually began work on the book itself.  I had printed each 'thing' on several different coloured strips of paper, then put them together - it was sort of like a puzzle, trying to figure out what fit where on the page.
     And now I have Altered Books to play around with!  I'm presently working on a couple of pages.  I'll have to post them the next time I write about my 'projects'.

It's Been Awhile

Life can definitely get busy!  Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to run in several directions at once, with this to do ... that to finish ... oh, and I must get to that too!  Can anyone relate?

It's my own fault.  That wonderful word - procrastination!  "Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow?"  The problem with that is that I suddenly find myself with a 'to do' list as long as my arm and the deadline is just around the corner!  And I feel overwhelmed.  Why do I do this to myself?

Part of my problem - besides just not getting at the job at hand - is that I have a hard time saying "No" when someone asks me to do something.  Always willing to lend a hand .... well, not always .... but definitely often.  I like to do things for people.  I like to help out in a situation, especially if it has something to do with creativity, like making cards for people, or scrapbooking .... or singing.  Not that I have a great voice.  I don't.  But I can carry a tune.

However, it's the P word that causes me the problems - PROCRASTINATION!  "Don't do today what can be put off until tomorrow" .... or the next day ... or next week!  And then the crunch comes, and I realize I have six things to do by Wednesday or something!

Another 'turn of phrase' I use too often is "One of these days ....".  One of these days I'm going to re-sew the braided rug that my mother made many years ago out of my Dad's old suit pants.  It's a beautiful rug, but the stitching where the braids were sewn together is coming undone as a result of me throwing it in the washer.  Well, it needed to be washed!  But now it's coming apart, and needs to be sewn together.  And believe me, 'one of these days' I'm going to get around to doing it!

Believe it or not, I do get things done - eventually.  If I have a deadline, I meet that deadline.  However, if there is no deadline ... well, I get around to it eventually.  I love retirement!  I love the freedom it gives me.  I love the different types of things I've been able to do.  I've been able to write a book.  I've been able to paint, although I haven't done any paintings for the last couple of years - too busy with my book.  However, now that my book is out, it's not quite as time-consuming.  No more editing.  Just interviews and signings, initially.

Life is good!  I just have to get a handle on this procrastination so that I'm not always doing things just 'under the wire'.  Time management!  That's what I need!  I'll have to look into that .... one of these days!

It's That Time of Year

Nearly Christmas.  I have a hard time with Christmas, because I know this is not the time that Jesus was born.  I know how this date was chosen, so many years ago, by a Roman Emperor, to coincide with a pagan god, Tammuz.  I know, from reading Ezekiel Chapter 8, that God was not happy about the women weeping for Tammuz, when the Spirit took Ezekiel to the temple in Jerusalem to show him the abominations that were taking place there.

The Church celebrates Jesus' birth on December 25th, but that is not the day He was born.  From research I have done, I have discovered that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Feasts of the Lord as presented in the Book of Leviticus.  When I was doing a word study years ago on the word 'tabernacle' in Hebrew and Greek, Holy Spirit dropped these words into my mind and heart:  "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt (tabernacled) among us."  I knew then that Jesus was born in the fall, during the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, many years later, I have discovered that Messianic Jewish believers also believe that Yeshua (Jesus) was born during the Feast of Tabernacles.

Usually, when I mention the feasts to my Christian friends, they respond with, "You mean the Jewish feasts?"  Yes, God gave the feasts to His Jewish people, but He calls them His Feasts - the Feasts of the Lord.  As believers, they are our Feasts too.  However, the Church has become so far removed from her Jewish roots through the teaching of Replacement Theology and Dual Covenant Theology that she no longer obtains nourishment from those roots.

Today, Christmas has become a worldly holiday.  North Americans love their Christmas celebrations!  It has become the greatest retail season of the year!  Ka-ching ka-ching!!  Cash registers raking it in, people standing in long lines to buy the latest gadgets and brightest glitz, fighting the crowds.  If 'Christmas' was truly a 'Christian' celebration, would the world be so intent on celebrating it?  I think not!

Christmas trees - pagan in origin;  Santa Claus - a lie we propagate to our children.  All the lights, the parties, the glitz and glamour, the shopping frenzy .... the drinking, the accidents .... most people who celebrate Christmas are certainly not celebrating Jesus' birth!  Why does the Church turn a deaf ear on history?  Most people don't even think about the history of it.  They celebrate it "because we've always done it this way!"  That reminds me of the story of the woman who always cut the ends off her roast before putting it in the pan.  When asked why, she said her mother had always done it that way.  When she asked her mother about it, her mother told her that usually the roast was too big for the pan, so she had to cut some off so that it would fit!

Yes, Christmas is often a wonderful family time.  But so could it be if we forsook our 'traditions' and celebrated Jesus' birth during the time it actually took place - during the Feast of Tabernacles, in the fall.  Make it a true celebration of Jesus' birth!

Call me a 'grinch' if you like, but I really don't like 'Christmas'.

A Long and Winding Road

The title above indicates that I have not always been the person I am becoming. There were many hard lessons I had to learn in my quest.  However, if that's what it took to get me to where I am today, it was worth it.

To begin with, I have always believed in God, even though I did not always follow Him.  I was brought up in the Catholic Church, and even as a child I was full of questions.  When I was four years old, sitting beside Mom in church on Sundays, when I saw people going to the front for Communion, in my child's mind I thought they were going to 'get a piece of God', and I wanted to go and get a 'piece of God' as well.  However, I was told I was too young, and could not do so.

When I was five, I was allowed to go and sit in the front pew with the other little girls, and - you guessed it - I went up to 'get a piece of God'.  Well!  The ruckus that caused!  I was told I was a bad girl because I had not made my 'First Holy Communion', and promptly was put in the kindergarten class with the 6-year-olds to prepare for that event.

Kindergarten had a lasting impression on me because of a story a nun told us one Sunday.  The story was about some martyrs who would not deny their faith and were killed by having their tongues nailed to a table.  That horrified and frightened me, and I just knew I could never love God enough to ever let anyone do that to me!  So of course, I felt guilty.

Guilt is a terrible emotion.  It eats away at you from the inside.  I didn't know how to make it go away.  I went to confession every week, and did my 'penance' of whatever prayers the priest told me to say .... but my guilt remained.  Sometimes I put pebbles in my shoes to show God that I really did love Him.  I would look up at the huge crucifix at the front of the church, seeing Jesus hanging on the cross with drops of blood across His brow, at His side, and His hands and His feet ...... and I knew my sins put Him there, but I didn't know what to do about it.  I could find no answers.

Eventually I left the Church, having become very disillusioned.  I figured if the 'truth' I was searching for wasn't in the church, then maybe it was in the world.  I searched for truth, reading psychology and philosophy books, and New Age stuff .... and each time ended up with the proverbial 'sand in my mouth'.

I had begun drinking at university, and discovered that when I drank I didn't know when to stop.  I had blackouts from the first.  But it took me a lot of years to realize and admit that I was alcoholic.  I was married with three kids, divorced and remarried before I finally found sobriety in AA.  Thank God for AA!
And thank God for my sponsor!  She was wonderful.  The first thing she told me was to ask God for help in the morning, and to thank Him at night.  This I did.  I began having a 'quiet time' in the morning before going to work - a time with God.  I read spiritual books.

I began to ask God to show me His truth.  I told Him I didn't want a church's truth, I wanted His truth.  After about a year of asking Him for His truth, Jesus spoke out loud to me, and said, "I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father but by Me," and, not as loud or clear, He said something about "the Father draw Him."

I did have a Bible by this time, and I took it from the shelf, held it in my hand, and said, "If You want me to read those words, You'll have to show me where they are, because I don't have a clue where to look."  Then I let the Bible fall open, and my eyes landed on the first words Jesus had spoken.  I flipped some pages once with my finger, several pages moved, and my eyes landed on the words, "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws Him."  I was overwhelmed!  That Jesus would speak out loud to me!  I was such a sinner!

That was close to thirty years ago.  Believe me, it changed my life!  That is not to say I immediately changed.   For me, it took time.  A friend had told me that when I read the Bible, to ask the Holy Spirit to show me His truth, and that I did.  I studied the Bible for several years, and every time that I watched Billy Graham on TV and he gave an altar call, I would ask Jesus to be my Lord and Savior.

Finally, I was ready to be baptized.  I went to a Baptist church a few times, and finally spoke to the pastor and told him I wanted to be baptized.  He and his wife came over to my apartment one evening, and after some discussion, he agreed to baptize me.  We set a date.

The big morning arrived, and the pastor's wife phoned and told me I might want to reschedule my baptism, because the hot water heater had quit working overnight, and there was no hot water.  But I told her I didn't want to reschedule, I wanted to be baptized.

Let me tell you, that water was COLD!  But I was baptized!

Since that day my life has changed dramatically.  Somehow I began to change 'from the inside out'.  It wasn't so much that I was making conscious decisions to change, but rather that Holy Spirit was changing me.

Today, twenty-some years later, I'm a different person than I used to be!  Glory to God!  It's all about Him, Father, Son Jesus, and Holy Spirit.  Three aspects or Persons in one God.  He changed me, and continues to change me!  Oh, how He loves us!  He loves us enough to change us and move us out of our misery and striving to a place of peace and joy.

Yes, it has been a long and winding road .... but what a ride!  The excitement continues!

Procrastination

Procrastination - the 'art' of putting off today that which can wait until tomorrow.  That's my definition, and unfortunately, I'm very good at it.  Sometimes things get put off indefinitely, in which case it either doesn't get done at all, or else I'm scrambling at the last minute to get it done!

I can sometimes come up with a lame-sounding excuse for not just doing a task:  I don't feel motivated at the moment;  I'm tired;  I don't feel creative ..... the list could probably go on.  However, in all honesty I have to admit it comes down to laziness, which is not a characteristic I'm at all proud of!

I have been procrastinating about blogging, simply because I don't know what I should write about most of the time.  How personal should I get?  Most of the things I am passionate about revolve around God's truth, especially with regard to Israel and the Church, and I confess I become frustrated when Christians look at me like I've gone off my rocker when I mention the Feasts or our Jewish roots, thanks to centuries of Replacement Theology, as well as Dual Covenant Theology.

My desk area needs an overhaul, and I've also been procrastinating about that.  Papers and books, slips of paper with 'notes to myself' ..... It would be wonderful to be highly organized at all times, but I'm ... NOT, unfortunately!  It would be wonderful to have a nice-sized office with enough shelves and filing cabinets for all my books and papers.  However, that isn't going to happen.  Instead, my 'office' is part of my bedroom, and I'm a big fan of books, which overflow my bookshelves.  I do have a filing cabinet, in which I do file my paid bills ..... but I also have all these little 'notes to myself' and interesting quotes I jot down on a slip of paper, to be added to my book of quotes at some point in the future, as well as sticky notes regarding upcoming appointments or someone's phone number stuck to the hutch of my desk.  How did I ever get a book written?  It boggles my mind!

I've been procrastinating all day about a card I was asked to make for a friend.  I made one a few days ago which turned out very well - in fact, I really liked it.  Maybe I'm just not feeling 'creative' today ....waiting till my 'creative juices' get flowing again .... or maybe I'm just procrastinating...... after all it doesn't have to be done until Tuesday!  I still have tomorrow!

I really admire people who can see what needs to be done, roll up their sleeves and jump right in!  Most of the time.  At other times all that energy I see just makes me tired, and I think, "Chill out;  take a break."

And at other times still .... I wish I had that energy and motivation I see in others.

Maybe tomorrow .......

The Feast of Tabernacles - A Wonderful Celebration!

This week concluded the eight-day Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot celebrations.  Seldom recognized in the Christian community is the celebration of the Lord's feasts, which is unfortunate, because they contain so much meaning for us.  In fact, generally when I mention them to fellow Christians, they ask, "You mean the Jewish feasts?"  However, they are not 'Jewish' feasts, although Jewish people observe them.  In Leviticus 23:2 they are referred to as 'the feasts of the LORD' and 'My feasts'.

John's Gospel tells us, in chapter 7:37-38:  On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."  But He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.


Why would He say this on 'the last day of the feast'?  During this feast, the priests brought water from the pool of Siloam in a golden pitcher, which was symbolic of the water that came out of the rock in Exodus 17.  The people would follow joyfully in procession, reciting Isaiah 12:3: Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  Jesus' Hebrew name is Yahshua, which means "God saves".  In more recent times His name has been shortened to 'Yeshua'.  Consequently Jesus was giving the people and the priests a great hint of Who He was, for He is our salvation.

The Feast of  Tabernacles in the Old Covenant celebrated the peoples' learning period of wandering in the desert for forty years, when they lived in 'sukkas' or tents or booths.  Several years ago as I was doing a study on these words, both in Hebrew and Greek, I experienced an 'aha' moment, when God spoke to my heart the words, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."  From that moment I have believed that it was during this Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus was born.  I already knew that He wasn't born on December 25th, for years prior I had discovered the paganism that had been brought into the Church through the Emperor Constantine.  Many others, both Messianic Jews and Gentiles, also believe that Jesus was born during the Feast of Tabernacles.

It is a great celebration, lasting eight days.  People in Israel and warmer climates build a sukkah or booth in their yard or on their patio, often sleeping and having their meals in it.  In cooler climates they often just have their meals in it.  It is a time of rejoicing!

Today in Messianic congregations it is a great time of celebrating what Yeshua has done for us - taking our sins upon Himself (at Passover) when He shed His blood for us - 'and without shedding of blood there is no remisson' (Hebrews 9:22) of sin.  It also speaks to us of Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus was referring to earlier when He said, "Come to Me and drink", for after Jesus was resurrected and ascended to heaven, He sent Holy Spirit to earth on Pentecost.

If you have an opportunity to join in with a Messianic congregation, which consist of  Jews who believe that Jesus is their Messiah, as well as Christians who want to connect to the Jewish roots of the bible, in the celebration of their feasts, I encourage you to do so!

Busyness

I can get so caught up in the 'busyness' of life that sometimes I overlook the important things, or grant them, as it has been said, "a lick and a promise."  I really dislike being 'on the run', but sometimes life happens!

Most of the time, when I'm home with nothing overwhelming happening, and not having to rush to anything, I love to begin my day with my journal, a devotion, and my Bible.  That is my time alone with my Lord, where I praise Him and thank Him for all He has done in my life, and tell Him what is currently going on, seeking His guidance and direction.  I love these times together with Him.  I share my concerns, what is happening in my own life, as well as in the lives of family members or friends. I pray for them, asking my heavenly Father what I, perhaps, can do in a given situation.  Sometimes I receive clear guidance in the form of a thought; other times I don't.

Life, however, at times can get extremely busy, or I'm away from home and don't have the privacy I need to pour out my heart to God in my journal, or spend the time I would like to in the Bible.  At such times I become depleted of God's input into my life, and I run on my own steam, tiring quickly.  These are the times I am not depending on Holy Spirit's wisdom or power, but my own, and I sometimes say things I shouldn't say.

How I need to depend on that wonderful boost from the Holy Spirit!  How I need that awesome communion with God at the beginning of my day!

It wasn't always that way.  In the years before I knew my loving Savior, I just 'did my own thing', not giving a thought to others.  I was terribly selfish, and also terribly lost.  But that was another story!

Having just spent about three weeks of the last month away from home, attending seminars and conferences which were excellent, I might add, and extremely helpful both personally and spiritually, it was so wonderful to get back home, into my regular routine, and having the privacy to spend my 'alone' time with my heavenly Father in the morning.  Aaahh!  Rejuvenation!