I Learned How to Walk in God's Favor From a Cat

I have about 20 outside cats. In their eyes I'm like a god: I feed them, give them water, give them shelter, pet them, and, if they let me, I will treat their wounds.

When I feed them a few stand off at a safe distance--I am dangerous, you know. I am huge and I might attack. If I move out of range a bit, they'll dash up and grab a few bites, with one eye on me. If I step closer, those cats will run away.

Another group are happy to be petted while they are chowing down, but if I am outside in a different context, they watch from afar.

Some are happy to be petted while eating, but once they're through, they don't want anything more to do with me.

A handful hear me come outside in any context and wander over to see what I am doing. Some of those who are willing to be petted while they eat follow and observe at a distance.

But there is one cat who comes straight to me in any context. She will come down the lane to meet me. When it's likely I will be outside, she is waiting at the front door for me to come.

The cats treat me just like we humans treat God.

Some of us stand off at a distance, convinced God really isn't good, that He has ulterior motives or simply wants us dead. But, we're hungry, so eventually we'll eat what He provides but He'd better not expect any kind of thanks or anything like that. And if something goes wrong, He's to blame.

The next group are happy to be in His presence as long as the goodies are being dished out. They'll deign to experience His touch, but as soon as the food is gone, they're outa there.

Some are willing to come and be in God's presence when it's convenient for them.

Then, there are the ones who seek after and wait for and pursue God. Like Tiger-stripe, the cat who seeks me out, these humans enjoy more petting, more blessings, more care and love.

Is God playing favorites? Am I playing favorites?

No. Any cat/human willing to be petted will be petted and loved on.

The Favor of God is available to everyone, but it's up to each of us whether we experience it or we don't.

Aaron Turkle Interviewed on Podcast: The In-House vs. Agency Dilemma

In this episode of The Marketing Remix, “Media: The In-House vs. Agency Dilemma,” Emily Spears, Media Manager of Display & Social Advertising, and Aaron Turkle, Paid Search Strategist at Red Door Interactive, break down the in-house vs. agency dilemma, it’s near and long-term ramifications on the marketing industry and where brand marketers go from here.

Adriana and Aaron at Work

Aaron is quoted in this blog post from Red Door Interactive, where he works: "Redefining "Brand Safety" in Digital Advertising"

The god of Well-Being

John Lennox, " Well being is one if the major idols of our time."

I admit to staring at some women of younger generations in dismay when I hear them talk about not wanting to bear children because of the difficulties of pregnancy. If they do bear a child, these women demand drugs to block their pain during childbirth and keep in remembrance every agony, if they suffer any. I bore 5 children naturally with no drugs and gave no thought to the discomforts of pregnancy beyond the moment. I did not focus on the pain, but looked with joy upon the new life God gave me, forgetting all that came before.

In the 60's when the pill came available, some devout Christians warned that the pill would have terrible unintended consequences. And they've been proven correct. The pill shifted sex from an enjoyable activity which must be protected in marriage and entered into with the full knowledge that it would most likely result in a child to an an enjoyable activity that is a right above and beyond the responsibilities of the life of the child that might be conceived and the sacredness of marriage.
Many of today's people overlook, ignore or pretend that the life a child that might be conceived due to engaging in sexual activity, is worthless compared to their personal well-being, their pleasure, their finances, their convenience. They insist that a woman must not be forced to become the brooding container for another life. But wait, who did the forcing? Wasn't the life that was invited forced to be conceived? Who came first, the mother or the fetus?

The author of this piece posted below pretends or ignores the reality that children are invited into this life via sex and places an individual woman's well-being as the prime value above all others. One's own well-being is not a god worthy of such adoration or worship, no god that demands child sacrifice is worth anything except abhorrence and disdain.

Abortion is not Murder

What would my life have consisted of it I had put, as my prime value, my well-being? I will not go into details unless I'm specifically asked, but I was told to abort more than one of my children. According to the world, I would have been better off if I had. I was an unwed mother, at one point, at another moment in time I was an abused wife with no prospects for any improvement in my future. But all one has to do is look at my life to see that the world is wrong! The world never factors in God. It never factors in Love. Certainly none of my children would agree that any of them should have been aborted! But it's not just me who's better off--the world is better off--each one of my children is a blessing to many, many others.

I am grateful to have grown up in an era when women knew up front that fooling around with a guy would most likely result in pregnancy no matter what precautions one took, that carrying a child was uncomfortable, that giving birth might be painful and it would require a lot of work, not just to bear them, but to raise them and I didn't have this notion that my well-being figured into the short term picture even one iota. I am grateful to be the mother of six gifts to the world! Momentary well-being cannot match the wonder and joy God set before me when He gifted first me and then the world with these children! 

December 21, 2017

One year ago yesterday Dan C Lathrop moved to heaven.

Everybody will die sooner or later, it's a given. The method by which you move from planet earth to wherever you have chosen to end up isn't important, unless something about the way your body dies gives medical science some information it didn't already have or your behavior during your departure helped someone who's still here in some way.

What happens between the year you were born and the year your body dies isn't even important, unless whatever happened was love.

Whatever kind of existence you have after your body dies is dependent on two things: did you ask Jesus into your heart to be your Lord and Savior and did you love. If you haven't asked Jesus into your heart, then you haven't even begun to love. Those who listen to Jesus and do what He says are empowered to go beyond what's humanly capable in love. Jesus never asks anybody to do anything that isn't love. And the reward Jesus prepares for you in Heaven will be based on how well you loved.

Often what we, in our human reason, think is love isn't.

Life is all about love and learning to love.

Dan loved you who are reading this.

From 2002 onward Dan lived every day with a constant headache, yet most of you never knew that because it wouldn't have been loving to inflict his pain on you. I remember him as the most considerate, patient, thoughtful man I ever met. No human being ever has or will ever love me as much as Dan loved me.

Remember how he loved you. And remember, when your body dies nothing you ever did will matter except love.

Tribute to the 124th Cavalry

Granddad was a member of the 124th which were called "The Masmen of Burma"

Chicken Soup for the Soul posts by Dr. Milton Boniuk

Dr. Boniuk is the man who operated on Dan when he was 18 years old and removed the lens from his eye--the one that looked straight ahead--and then wrote the prescription for the contact lens Dan would then wear. I think Dr. Boniuk also operated on Charlie, removing first one lens and then the other, and writing his first eyeglass prescription. Here's some of his Chicken Soup for the Soul articles:

Dr. Milton Boniuk Biography and links to articles