Tag: Inspirational

Word Prompts Whirl

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 6 Comments

Good morning everyone!

I woke up and looked at the clock, which read 7:01. After a moment’s pondering, I rolled out of bed, got to my feet, and enjoyed a moment of gratitude because I CAN get up and stand on my feet. I CAN move around. When you’ve worked in a nursing home as I have, and seen people who lie in bed for months and even years, you do appreciate the ability to move around.

I recall a time when I was twenty-something. I’d just woken up and was pondering rather ungratefully how life wasn’t going well for us. My husband had to give up his job as a grain buyer because of allergies; at that time he was taking odd jobs with farmers to keep us afloat. We could hardly pay bills; we were living upstairs in his parents’ home. No, our life just didn’t look very rosy at that moment with us being so broke. Then I got out of bed and looked out the window, across the houses and tree tops of Moose Jaw, and the thought came to me, “You have something wonderful. You can see.”

Remember that old poem about the person who was feeling envious until she met a lad who was blind. The last line being, “Oh, Lord, forgive me when I whine. I have two eyes; the world is mine.” Not that my gratitude should be based on what others don’t have and can’t do, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to count your physical blessings. Mr Google tells me you can read the poem here.

Anyway, I headed for the kitchen for my morning coffee, my thoughts still flitting around my experiences in the nursing home. Breakfast: I can do it. I can fix myself, and enjoy, cereal, toast an egg. I recall how we’d feed those folks mush because they couldn’t swallow anything solid. Thank you, God for the ability to move, to swallow, to see – even if the season’s changing in a way I don’t appreciate.

Ragtag Daily Prompt: FRUSTRATION. Not at all this morning, thankfully. As I was saying, I’m feeling grateful rather than frustrated at all at the start of this new day – except maybe by the fact that the week has flown by so fast. Being retired, I can’t say like many others are morning, “Thank God it’s Friday!” But I will say a special thanks to you bloggers who supply us with new writing prompts every day. 🙂

Your Daily Word Prompt: PERFIDIOUS. Ah! This weather. This morning I opened the front door, looked out and took note of my coleus plant in a pot on the deck. Yesterday when I watered it, this plant had lush green leaves, swirled with appealing red tones as coleus are. This morning it’s limp and solid purple. Yesterday when the sun was shining brightly and the evening was fairly mild, I didn’t even think about frost. I have been taking in some nights so it wouldn’t freeze, but wasn’t thinking of frost last night. “Haha,” said the perfidious temperature as it dipped down and dealt my coleus a death blow.

Fandango’s One-Word Challenge: RECONCILE. Yes, I need to reconcile myself to the idea that autumn is here. The leaves are going to fall – in fact the maples have shed a lot already – and my plants are going to freeze. I need to get outside and do some fall clean-up before the snow flies. And the snow will fly, though it’s been so dry we may not get a lot. Back in 1976 we had a really dry fall here on the prairie and got no snow to speak of until February.

Word of the Day: AGASTOPIA. I saw this and wondered, what on earth is that? Neither Lexico nor Merriam-Webster can help me out. According to the prompter, this word means “The visual enjoyment of the appearance of a specific physical aspect of another person.” It can have a sensual context.

When we lived in Montréal I had this friend, a delightful person, with a real weakness for colours and textures. Today we’d call her “bipolar”; back then it was “manic-depressive”; at any rate, she was apt to react more strongly than most of us to visual or textural stimulus. Walking through a mall with her one day I had to be patient, as she’d see some fabric that excited her and she’d have to stop and handle it. A fur vest – she just had to rub it.

She told this story on herself: she was riding home on the subway one day when a man sat in front of her. Well, he had the thickest, darkest, most appealing mop of hair. She was fascinated and tried to restrain herself, but finally she couldn’t anymore. She reached out and buried her fingers in it as she exclaimed, “You have beautiful hair!” I gather he was surprised, but thankfully more flattered than alarmed. He just said – perhaps with a bit of uncertainty, “Thank you.” But she was such a cheery, likeable person that he didn’t take offense.

Lastly, Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day this morning is DELVE. I’ve been delving into Bible prophecy – the different ideas that have been embraced by Christians – and plan to post an article on premillennialism and dispensationalism later today. What huge words, eh? The first word means “before the thousand years” and the second refers to ages or eras.

I want to say a hearty thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to read this ramble of mine. But now it’s 10:30 and I’ve journalled enough. I’d better get on with some real work of the day. I hope you all have a great weakened weekend. (English is so much fun! )

Three Things God Needed

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 1 Comment

When my dad was on his deathbed, fearful of what awaited him on “the other side” but still not wanting to think about a Holy God, I asked him, “Why do you think God created mankind in the first place?”

When he grunted an “I dunno,” I told him God wanted someone to love…and someone to love him.” My dad had a father who never loved him. He struggled all his life with this loss — and with the concept of a loving God. Sadly, a lot of people do.

Thirty years later I still read it this way: God wanted a people to be his own, to love him, trust him, and serve him voluntarily. So He created a people, and a beautiful garden. And he loved them. He walked and talked with them in the garden. But…there had to be a choice.

God has always been about choice. He could send an angel to bop each one of us on the head and say, “Yes, God is real,” but he’s never been about forcing people to believe. So he gives us a choice, the knowledge of an option. In the Garden of Eden the couple God created was given a choice. A tree…and the command, “You shall not eat of the fruit of this tree.” A simple enough test. You likely know the rest.

The way the universe is set up, and God being pure and holy, sin has to be punished. Even you and I who have deliberately done things we knew were wrong – though we may hope our own small-ish sins will be pardoned – believe there must be some reckoning. We aren’t willing to let the Hitlers, Stalins, Jack the Rippers and Bin Ladins, the torturers, murderers and pedophiles, all be whitewashed and slide into Heaven along with their victims. Every religion on earth teaches that cruel people have to face the music/karma/judgment day. They will be punished for the suffering they’ve caused.

Sin must be dealt with, but God wasn’t willing to cast away every sinner. He isn’t a “That’s it; you had your chance. Now beat it!” kind of Creator. He has a heart of love for mankind. So, in his dealings with us and our sins, God worked out a rescue plan. Then he demonstrated it in a way mankind could grasp. You don’t talk quantum physics to an eight-year-old even if he thinks he knows everything. Rather, you give him a simple demonstration, enough basic details that he can get it in a small way.

Three Things God Needed For His Plan:
— A mirror
— A cradle
— A substitute

The nation of Israel was God’s mirror, a literal depiction of spiritual truths. He chose the Hebrews from among the nations and set them up in a land all their own. This would be an illustration of the spiritual promised land Christians enter when they are born again.

Through these people he demonstrated his plan of redemption, giving them living sacrifices to show how sin must be atoned for. He punished them when they strayed by letting enemy nations conquer them – just as Satan conquers a soul and brings it into bondage. He showed how, when the people turned back to him, he delivered them from their enemy.

Israel was his mirror – or you could call it his “stained glass window.” Israel was his church on earth, but with all the flaws and wanderings that mankind are prone to. These were real people so that we can now look into this mirror and see ourselves. He worked into this window a tableau of his dealings with his people, with individuals who are faithful as well as those who turn away, and how he would someday deal with the Church, his Bride, the New Jerusalem.

The Apostle John was given a vision of this wonderful new world:
“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her bridegroom. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” – Revelation 21: 2-3

The nation of Israel was also God’s cradle. He promised Abraham that “in thee and thy offspring, will all the nations of the earth be blessed.” So many writings promised a coming King, “the lion of the tribe of Judah,” and “of the lineage of David.” He would redeem mankind, both Jews and Gentiles. He would be the sacrifice, the acceptable substitute for sin — for those who looked to him in faith and made the choice to follow him.

Having completed the tableau, having used the cradle of Israel to bring forth his Son, the Redeemer of all men, having offered salvation to the Jewish people first of all – and been rejected – God finally abandoned Israel as his people. We still have the tableau in the Old Testament writings, but the mirror has been shattered.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Matthew 23:37-38

“Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Matthew 21: 43

Forest Sounds

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 3 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt for today is the word SOUND.
My response will be this poem by Canadian poet Archibald Lampman:

SOLITUDE

How still it is here in the woods. The trees
Stand motionless, as if they did not dare
To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air
Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.
Even this little brook, that runs at ease,
Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed,
Seems but to deepen with its curling thread
Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences.

Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker
Startles the stillness from its fixed mood
With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear
The dreamy white-throat from some far-off tree
Pipe slowly on the listening solitude
His five pure notes succeeding pensively.

Archibald Lampman
1861 – 1899

Bench by stream.jpg

Upside Down Thoughts

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

UPSIDE-DOWN THOUGHTS
by Margaret Penner Toews
from her book, FLY HIGH MY KITE

I sit and ponder on some things
that once my Saviour said:
The greatest isn’t one who leads
but one who is gladly led.
The greatest thinks about himself
as being truly small.
The poor in spirit really are
the richest ones of all.

The weak are strong. The first are last.
who dies to self shall live.
Who keeps is poor, but rich are those
who give and give and give.

His mathematics aren’t like
the numbers that we use–
But, Oh! how rich His promise if
His reckoning I choose!
The way He tallies might seem queer
and even make us frown,
But it is never He, but we
who are thinking “upside-down”.

As well as being a great poet and writer of devotional books, Margaret was a dear friend of mine. So I’ll post this verse in honor of her, as my contribution to National Poetry Month today.

Another Poem From My Stash

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

HOLD STILL

by Margaret Penner Toews

Wee little hummingbird, caught in a wire,
Halt, little bird, or your wings will tire:
In your little-bird-world your plight is dire!
Hold still, wee bird, hold still!

Wee little hummer, don’t flail, don’t fight!
If you’d stop your frenzy you’d be all right.
It’s the flailing that causes your awful plight.
Hold still, little bird, hold still.

Is your wee little scream a little bird-prayer?
How can I tell you, wee bird, I care?
You pause at last and numbly stare.
Don’t be afraid! Hold still.

Spent, despairing, you rest your wing.
I reach. I touch. What a fragile thing,
The delicate body quivering,
A hummingbird, holding still!

In my palm you tarry a little bit,
Then shake, and away like a breath you flit.
I stand astonied at thought of it…
A hummingbird, holding still!

How tiny the feather you left behind!
…And then of a sudden there comes to mind
The truth God wanted for me to find:
“Hold still, my child, hold still.

“Stop your frenzy and rest in Me.
It’s the flailing that hurts you, don’t you see?
Whate’er your predicament, trust in Me.
Hold still, my child, hold still.”

© Margaret Penner Toews
From her book FIRST A FIRE

Margaret’s poetry is delightful reading and she has published several books of poems as well as several books of devotional thoughts. These are available from PrairieView Press and Gospel Publishers.