Welcome to my personal blog where I will be sharing all things aviation with some added spice as inspiration flows. You can learn about my books that are published as well as get tastes of what is to come. Why would an author write a blog? It is a terrific place to practice the discipline of writing down ideas and developing them as well as getting feedback and entering discussion with our readers. A blog is simply what used to be called a diary or journal. Goal? Try to write something every day. Well perhaps once a week. Are you on for the ride? Climb in and fly with me. Through fact and yes even fiction….
Agnus Dei
John the Baptist. Carried in the womb of an elderly barren woman. As a fetus, he bore witness to another Fetus in the womb of a young virgin girl. John the Baptist emerged as a wild young man, bursting on the scene outside the city gates shouting PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD. Commanding the people to REPENT and BE BAPTIZED for the forgiveness of your sins. The people came. That in itself was miraculous. In the natural, stepping into a river to be dunked was absurd. But they lined up and did it. Then John the Baptist told them of One who was GREATER who was coming. Anticipation rose. This One would completely wipe away sin from the earth.
In fact when He appeared coming down the road toward the river, John the Baptist leaped in his spirit as he had as a fetus in Elizabeth’s womb. He pointed and shouted, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.” The Lamb of God submitted to John’s Baptism and a Voice resounded from the heavens, “This is My Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” The Lamb…that holy Lamb, spotless Lamb, Agnus Dei, …it takes me to a vivid dream I had back in the late 1980s.
I was in a store on a very stormy cold windy day. It was crowded with shoppers. I went down one aisle and saw people pointing at a heap on the floor. They were turning away in disgust. I approached the heap. It was a tiny lamb. Totally covered in blood and near death.
I told the crowd, “someone needs to take this lamb. It will die soon if we don’t.” Their disgust was tangible. “I’m not taking that nasty thing home. It’s mangled. It’s gonna die. It’s sickly. It would mess up my clothes. And my car. “ one by one they walked off. I saw the fire in the lamb’s huge liquid brown eye. It was pleading, “won’t someone gather me to their heart and take me home?” I was flooded with compassion for it’s terrible state of being. I was filled also with a strange passion likened to that fire in its eyes. I scooped the lamb into my arms, its blood covering my white blouse and running down my legs, dripping on the floor. It left a long bloody trail as I carried it to my car. Did I toss it in my trunk? No. I cradled it into the passenger seat and covered it with my coat. When I got home I placed it near our fireplace and lit a fire.
I sat with the lamb as warmth returned to its body. I then fed it some milk and decided I needed to check into what lambs ate. The Lamb turned to me and I knew. He had all He needed. And was imparting to me all I needed. He whispered “My Bride.” I must have looked puzzled. Then I heard that Voice from Above…you know the one they heard at the river that day when the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world was baptized.
The Voice said, “To Become My Bride is to Embrace the Lamb.” Which is what I had done by bringing Him home with me.
I later found the figurine and bought it. It was recently accidentally dropped and broken. I wept, but my husband very carefully glued it back together. You can hardly tell where it was glued.
Stone of Understanding
Recently, I have been taking very brisk walks down our county roads. (Thank you, Lord for cooler weather). It is my time to focus on life issues, and mostimportantly how I am HANDLING life issues. We all have them. We all seek ways to deal with them.
I stream my upbeat contemporary Christian music as I walk, with even a “little” of my blast from the past rock and roll. Music has always centered me, and God knows that. Well of course He knows that. He created me.
During one particularly dark time in my life —yes, I am prone to suffer intense darkness in my soul as I pray through things, and ponder all the frantic frenzy going on around me—family, friends, community, and world—I started seeing beautiful stones in the gravel that I had not seen before. I heard in my mind, “Gather them. They are memorials”. So, I lined my pockets with several.
I then heard “Ebenezer Stone”, and I knew we were going somewhere with this. When I got home I researched the history of the Ebenezer and the lyrics to my all time favorite hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” where the line read, Here I raise my Ebenezer… The scripture says: “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the LORD has helped us’.”(1 Samuel 7:12). I, at that time began to lay out my stones in a container on our patio table.
One is beautifully quartz. Many are flint. Then I found my “Shammah” stone that declared “GOD IS HERE.” On one particular day, after coming out of a very dark travail in my heart, I “raised my Ebenezer” in the way it was depicted in scripture. 
it reminds me often that God is helping. Today, however I found only one stone that shouted, PICK ME UP. It was a fine flat stone, and I didn’t give it much thought as I pocketed it. But when I got home it jumped to “life” and spoke a very loud message to me and probably to others within “hearing” of this writing.
As I studied the stone, I saw the shape of a horse’s head. I knew this was a “horse to ride upon” in this journey. I named it Understanding. At this point the Lord gave an embellishment of a little song we learned in children’s choir: Be careful little eyes what you see…you know the one, if you have ever been in Sunday School.
On this Stone of Understanding, the Lord goes beyond just the human senses. He had me singing this one:
”Be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little heart HOW you see it. Be careful little ears what you hear. Be careful little heart HOW you hear it. Be careful little mouth what you say. Be careful little heart HOW you say it. Be careful little hands what you do. Be careful little heart HOW you do it.”
The Lord has seated me on the Horse named Understanding and this stone will remind me. “Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7.
Metanoia.
WORDS: Unto death? Unto Life?
The literary genius, George Bernard Shaw once said, “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?” There is a two-edged sword attached to that statement. It’s one of those either/or situations.
The devil knows how to convince us with words. Look at Eve in the Garden. However, the devil is a counterfeit, with power-filled words that tempt and deceive and “convert” souls into an eternal darkness. The scripture is clear on this point—so clear that it inserts it right at the beginning.
Then the scripture proceeds to unfold the story of human kind and their struggle to find God in a world dominated by the cult of death. Thousands of years later, we are still struggling against this mighty wall of demonic oppression. It comes to steal, kill and destroy, and it appears to have only grown stronger in this present day.
His voice rings across the airwaves and jumps off the printed page. It is ok for you to do whatever you choose to do and be whatever you choose to be. God didn’t really mean what He said. You deserve to live life to the fullest without a bunch of rules putting you in chains. So humans make decisions. Their feet are swift to run to evil. Lawmakers relax laws and “legalize” the unthinkable, simply because they can no longer enforce their laws.
So, the devil has had his way. The devil’s words have power. They can bring death and destruction. They are carried by the spirit of this world. If we hear his voice we will believe his lies and we will be held captive by his minions. First sign of a storm in our life, we will fall into anguished despair, void of all hope. And guess what? The devil doesn’t give a rat’s patooty about you. He will kick you to the curb faster than you can say Jack Sprat and leave you with an assuring promise: “See you in hell, suckka.”
So do we let him have his way? Do we give in to this very strong delusion? Or do we stop, and say,
BUT GOD!!!
He sent his Son. They called Him Jesus. He came to love, heal and forgive….Wait? There is another way? Another voice out there? Yes! Jesus—the WORD made flesh brings the cleansing breath to our souls. He is our reality, and he bursts the devil’s unreality into a million worthless pieces.
BUT GOD!!!
His words have power. They bring life and restoration back to God’s holy intent for His creation. They are carried by His Spirit, and if we hear His voice and believe His promises, we will be eternally held in His hands and wrapped in His arms. When the storms hit—and they will as long as we walk on this earth—he will be RIGHT THERE, hand outstretched, saying, “Come to me…ride the waves with me…it’s all going to work together for your good in the end.”
Propensity Within
My musing for today: It is very common and easy for us to observe sinful attitudes and actions in others and ask “How COULD they?” “What on earth are the THINKING?” And then call them ugly names while accusing, gossiping, shunning. This shock and amazement at the depravity of our fellow man is driven by one thing: the reality of the human propensity to SIN is hard to stomach. After all, “I’m OK, You’re OK! Right? Isn’t that what we’ve been taught over the last 50+ years?
It is easy to rail against “all those evil people out there—especially those that don’t think like we do—including those dysfunctional members of our own households and workplaces.
The propensity to sin is still there. It is a product of DNA, broken on the day the whole of creation shifted toward darkness with one act of disobedience in the Garden. A “bad seed,” a tare sown took root in a heart once pure and spoiled the whole lot.
The defining moment comes to us personally when we look in the mirror hoping to see our “I’m ok-got it all together-affirmed-positive-on the cutting-edge of what really matters in this life” reflection staring back at us. Instead, when God is holding a “come to Jesus moment” with us, what we see is our own broken image—used up, dull-eyed and seemingly hopeless and beyond repair. Nope no amount of fancy make up, hair product, shaving lotion, spray tan, teeth-whitener and medications and supplements can fix this image. It’s reality. God just lifted the veil.
Yes that is our defining moment. “But WAIT, God! I’m your precious child, aren’t I? What’s up with this? “. This is our Damascus road. We are suddenly aware the PROPENSITY to sin is right there in us, and it’s not pretty. The cross necklace we wear, the Jesus Pin we place on our collar, the Bible we carry to church….don’t help this image. It is NOT PRETTY.
“God, why are you doing this to me? Don’t you love me? I am your child. I’m baptized and all that?” He answers, “I am doing this to you BECAUSE I love you. BECAUSE I am your child, and BECAUSE you are baptized and all that. You are playing in the pig trough and squandering your birthright. I am giving you the gift of REPENTANCE.”
That is our “I must arise and go to the Father’s House” moment. It renews within us a right spirit. Gives us newness of life in Christ. It gives us fuel to pray for others who are snared by darkness, swimming in their own propensity to sin. It gives us the realization that the “sin nature” still lurks within us all—sinner and saint—and God has clearly marked the EXIT door—Christ came that we all may be saved, and that if we confess our sins to the Father in Jesus Name, he is faithful and just to forgive us!
Amen.
JUDE: A Word for 2019
On New Year’s Eve I was seized with a sensation of divine restlessness and expectancy that , as has been His way with me over the past few decades, God was going to give me a word—a focus for 2019. He has never failed to be “spot on” as the Brits say.
This year I kept hearing the phrase “prepare for the out of normal”. I had to ponder that awhile, for I knew it did not mean “paranormal,” as in ghosts and goblins or New Age apparitions. He was specifying the essence of His kingdom, not of this world. He also exhorted us to “watch for the hidden reefs in your midst, those who are not as they ‘seem’.” They are set in the middle of the body of Christ to cause shipwreck with the things
of God. They eat and fellowship right alongside you, smiling and chatting away, with a hidden agenda to take you out. A friend and prayer partner also heard “Watchman” as a word for 2019. It confirmed directly what God is saying.
New Year’s Day dawned with the word JUDE resonating in my spirit. I was to READ JUDE, verse by verse and share it with others. So, here goes. Verses 1 and 2:
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James,
Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. . .
To those who are called. Wonder who that might be? Oh wait. I am a believer! So I am confident that these words are meant for me, and all those who are with me in the faith. We keep good company with one another in the faith!
Jude, along with the now deceased Peter, was deeply concerned about the increasing population of false teachers that had been “welcomed” into the churches in the area which were already rapidly falling from the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. Sound familiar? It should. We are there again as history faithfully repeats itself. No wonder God has said, “Read JUDE. Read it VERSE BY VERSE.
A True Confession
True confession time: I am a “Trump Supporter, conservative, evangelical Christian”, which, in some circles, equates me as a dimwit with grits for a brain. It matters not that I am college educated, literate, and have a second degree in Biblical ministries from a “real” Bible school/seminary.
Being conservative, I don’t subscribe to a socialist agenda. I have studied history, Karl Marx, literature and sociology of the ages (sociology is one of my minor fields). I have held the truth learned in these studies to be valid, especially the truth God has infused into the Scripture by His Spirit.
This article is by a fellow Trump-supporting “dim wit” who agonizes over his own beloved state of California. He hits and hits hard with how we as the church are to respond to our President, in addition to answering Gods command to pray for him. He also hits hard with truth about our responsibility as Christians to be about winning souls into the kingdom of God…and, yes, that sounds “evangelical”…that’s because it IS. The church is to do the work of the evangelist according to scripture. We are to look past the issues that keep us in constant turmoil and assume a kingdom view of things…the “40,000 foot high view”…things look very different high above this earth. And it’s closest to how God sees the grand picture as he looks upon his beloveds below…that is US, in case you’ve forgotten.
Snippets from Mario Murillo (The Trump miracle is not for wimps):
“Trump is not a pastor or a moral reformer. His role is specialized and only for a season. If we don’t seize the time and the door God has opened, disaster will strike. . . (By the way he is also not our conquering hero)
“Trump annoys you? You want a saint in the Oval Office? Grow up! His foibles are nothing in comparison to the overt godlessness spewing from the left. Instead of wimping out on Trump, blame the real villains.
“Those of you who worship Trump need a wake-up call too. He is not supposed to usher in revival. We are. He is not the one to pray without ceasing. We are. He is not the moral leader of America…that is the church!
“You claim Trump is a miracle like King Cyrus. But Cyrus didn’t help Israel build for very long. It was up to the people of God to seize the miracle. . .
“It took nearly 80 years after the king’s decree before the Temple and the wall were finished. Let me let you in on a secret: we don’t have 80 years. If we do not learn from history—America will never be restored. If we blow this…expect disaster. . .
“It is silly to worry about what people will think if we stand with Trump. . .
“We can’t be passive! We can’t fear supporting the president because things have gotten so heated. . .
“Our disunity is killing our cause. We must shake off the disastrous apathy and complacency that is dulling us to our duty. . .
“Don’t worry about others…just do the right thing. God will take care of the rest.”
https://mariomurilloministries.wordpress.com/author/mariomurilloministries/
So AMEN. Let’s all crawl down from our lofty towers, and out from under our rocks and pull together as a company of solid Christians and seek His face with all we have. AMEN.
Storm!
It’s been said, “It’s not the storm outside, but the peace inside.” I find I have to remind myself of these things daily. I mean, all you have to do is watch the “news,” if you can call it that, and go into a hyperventilating panic attack. Pill commercials can do it too…”It’s a wonder drug…going to solve all your problems…unless it chooses one of the 354 ways it can debilitate your or kill you. Jesus has whispered to me almost daily from the back of the boat…”Come sit back here with Me and look at all that stuff from My vantage point. “
I carry a storm within me—faced with “something going on with my back”. Since April of this year I have lost my ability to fly my airplane, play my piano, drive my car and now simply walk without assistance. I have gone from highly active to disabled.
The storm went to Cat 5 when the neurosurgeon in Houston, after taking copious notes and performing the usual office visit tests, said “I will not operate on your lower back.” He ordered another MRI for the thoracic spine because ONE symptom that I mentioned triggered his keen response. “Something else is going on.” So back to the huge stormy sea of unknowing. After two toss and turn nights of crying and getting very blue, Jesus called me from his familiar seat at the back of the boat. Girl…get up and come sit with me. So..once again there is peace in the storm.
Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com
Photo by C. Stone on Pexels.com
I ask your prayers as I get closer to an answer as to what is going on with my back and where I am going from here…every once in a while one of those HUGE waves crashes through and I find myself screaming my lungs out.
This eagle may be down, but she’s not out…Amen
My Sermon Today: God Bless America
I sat outside yesterday evening at the “twilight’s last gleaming” near our flag in the front yard and started singing God Bless America….it was a prayer. I prayed for this generation who has never known the greatness
of this country. I wept for this generation.
How can they pledge allegiance to a country they have never KNOWN? Prayer and bible reading has been shut down in schools and in the public work place. Statues of Baal have been raised as a standard to be worshipped..the god of Satan in several cities in our nation. I read of the statue being erected in Little Rock, Arkansas, in a very recent article. I only hope not. But I know of at least three others.
Baal is the god every kind of sexual perversion, and the torture, ritual abuse and murder of children. No wonder the floodgates of hell have been opened up and poured out on the land in unprecedented volume. It controls our entertainment industry, our media, our government, our education and, yes, sadly, it has found a comfortable niche in religious organizations.
How can this be in a land where we have had the right and freedom to worship the Creator Himself? How can this be in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa? What we have deemed as pagan and heathen practice in the past has now become the norm—the new “good”? How can this be?
Baal’s followers are drunk on the strong drink of pride and lust. They have smoked the pink fog of deception to the fullest…they either never knew America the beautiful or were encouraged to reject it for the sake of enlightenment.
It was human enlightenment spawned in the Garden of Eden by the fallen angel of light himself. It was human enlightenment that spread the toxin into all areas of life—its philosophy shouting from the rooftops: “God did not really mean what He said. You can be like gods if you follow me.”
So idols were raised. And even the church leaders bought into it presuming to be serving God. It was just the wrong “god”. The course of God’s perfect plan of intent shifted. The earth shifted on its perfect axis…balance shifted off balance.
Lord we need a detox. We need to be washed in Your blood, and cleansed by Your righteousness and truth.
God bless America, land that I love.
Stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above”.
And guess what? Jesus is still the Hope of this world. He took sin and death on His cross. Satan knows well that his time is short. He knows that Jesus is surely coming again IN His church, FOR His church and WITH His church…Breathe on Your people Lord…restore us anew unto You. Amen
So Why Aren’t You Flying?
So, why aren’t you flying?
People ask me that a LOT these days. They ask, because I am not flying. Until today I haven’t even wanted to THINK about flying.
Believe it or not, this past month, after passing my Class Three Medical, I was hit with serious balance and mobility issues thanks to Neuropathy. It is a scary thing to stand up and NOT feel the ground you are standing on . It is even scarier not to feel where you are trying to go when you take steps. Falls ensue and more insecurity creeps in. That is chaos. It is the middle of the night and you have to get up. You cannot feel the floor nor can you see in front of you. My doctor told me with this “positional sensation” depends on eyes, inner ears and feet to make a step. He had a blood test run which also showed I am borderline diabetic, and he immediately played the diet and exercise card.
The neuropathy plays together daily with a seriously messed up piriformis muscle which pinches the sciatic nerve and needs special stretches and management. That adds more numbness and burning. So, with the help of a personal trainer, I am getting strength, balance and stability.
I heard neuropathy is compared to suddenly having a set of stilts put on you. They are right. It is also a tangible example of chaos. When I get up at night I enter chaos. I consciously say to myself, “I need to go THERE, so I must turn on the LIGHT.” Then I can SEE what is THERE so I can go THERE. As I step I use the light and rhythmic tapping of my claw cane for cadence to get me THERE.
Other challenges include large rooms with little or no furniture, large parking lots, wide corridors where there is little color contrast and no knowledge of exactly where I am to go. If I am walking with someone (which is a great help) I can hold on to them or ask them “straight ahead? Or right? Or Left? That way i can establish my walking pattern. Where there are steps or stairs I look for rails. Climbing is easier than descending.
I have also reclaimed my piano pedals which, at first, I could not feel. That was as frightening as walking without falling. Hey! Gotta have my music. I hope soon to reclaim my cockpit in the airplane. Hey! I gotta fly!
Since the beginning of the nutrition plan April 24 I have lost 10 pounds and am NOT feeling deprived …in fact my challenge is now eating ENOUGH. I have also changed my eyeglasses to “that other pair that isn’t as fashionable. I wear trifocals and they are progressive lenses. I may have to go to “lines” because they distort my vision when I look quickly to the right or left. In wide open spaces I actually do better without glasses. Hmmm.
Psalm 119:105 says “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” That means, if I trust in God, His Lamp comes on right at my feet and the Light illumines the path in front of me.”
Claiming the chaos and naming the environment and purpose. Somewhere, down the path there will be restoration of health. AND I will be yelling, “Clear!” And hearing the airplane roar to life for an exciting aerial adventure!
NEW YEAR RESOLVE
FACE IT!!!
You’ve botched things up and the ripple effect is in motion.
People are HURT and lives destroyed because the SNAKE insinuated himself into your mind and told you it was the right thing to do.
So you gleefully ate the fruit of seduction and smiled smugly that you succeeded and got away with it.
This is nothing new. It is old history repeating itself.
But whose voice is that you hear in the distance??
You used to hear that Voice more clearly, but it seemed that Voice had distanced Himself and had “failed to satisfy” that restless lust for things of this world.
So you closed your ears to Him.
What He said was so boring anyway.
Heard all that stuff in church and Sunday School .
So out dated.
THIS is where REAL living is.
You’ve got this!
However…..He spoke your name….He sounded so close to you…
Now it is getting confusing…
Suddenly you “feel bad” about things that have happened.
You begin to publish your “public apology”.
That should stop the churning in your soul.
That should shut the judgmental, holier than thou crowd UP!
But He speaks your name again and says,
“STOP LOOK LISTEN and THINK.
You have made a big mess.
People around you are hurt because of you.
No one else to blame but yourself, so don’t even pick up that pointy finger.
Something stirs in your heart.
Your heart says, “TURN and run to that Voice. Because…
Showing REMORSE without REPENTANCE only brings REGRET without REPAIR.”
One step toward God with a broken and contrite heart can open a vast kingdom of blessing, of healing and peace.
REPENTANCE sets your feet in their right direction. Gods word becomes a lamp to illumine your steps. It is a light to light up the Way.
As you walk this way..a miracle of His choosing can and WILL happen.
For, Behold, He makes all things new. He makes mistakes and messes into miracles.
Oh, by the way, while I am talking to YOU, I’m looking in MY mirror too.
2018 on this NEW YEAR, RESOLVE.
Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…
Behold!! JOY TO THE WORLD! THE LORD IS COME….and He makes all things NEW to those who come to Him and receive Him as King of their hearts!
Happy New Year!
Becky
Rebecca Mclendon, Author 