Where I'm From

Based on the children's book Mama, Where Are You From?

I'm from a knee-high grass field full of weeds and wildflowers. Chasing my brother and sisters through the harsh grass; chasing fireflies while the sun sets.

I'm from the sewing machine which made patched doll clothes, and where I made my first dress. From pricked fingers and ripped-out seams.

I'm from bluegrass and gospel played in the car on a country road. I'm from Bach and Mahler and Copeland--shaking the house with the blare of symphonies and string quartets and sonatas.

I'm from the land of bumps and bruises, scrapes, cuts and gashes, thanks to good ole' clumsiness.

I'm from the family who thinks the right word--no matter how big--is important. I'm also from a book which manages to state everything important in life in the small words of the common man.

I'm from grace--both in my teaching and in my life--because I would not be teaching still if it were not for the Grace of God.

I'm from a hot kitchen, stirring, simmering and baking my way to sanity after a long day.

I'm from frustration to giving up--in the good way. Realizing that I cannot do it on my own--I must rely on the Holy Spirit in order to get me through. Realizing the control I so carefully construct is nothing; the creator of Heavens and Earth is the real guiding force.

I'm from God, who before the foundation of the world called my name. I know because I hear His voice calling me now.

Dedication

This quote came from a brother across Facebook... and I needed it. I think I'll always need it.

But when God came to His own temple, the church, the--the people... When He came to them, He filled it, the temples that were dedicated, just like He did at Solomon's temple. He filled it not with creeds, not with denominations, but with Himself. He filled the temple with His Shekinah Glory. So did He do on the day of Pentecost. He filled them one hundred and twenty temples that was up there with Hisself, with the Holy Ghost Itself. The Shekinah Glory broke through upon them.
And then, what Nimrod failed to do, built a temple where every man spoke contrary to what he could understand, God came down, and with one Galilean language, made every man understand what He was saying, and what it was. So there's God to His temple: God to His dedicated temple, not to a man-made achievement, not to what man done; but what God did Himself.

DEDICATION_ ELIZABETHTOWN.KY SUNDAY_ 62-1111M
E-40 Oh, it's silly to the people. They don't get it. They were born not to get it, so they won't get it. The Bible says so. All right. God always fills His temple. At the day of dedication He fills His temple. He fills it with Hisself. The same thing today, God will fill every temple that will thoroughly dedicate itself to Him.
Any persons that will... The temple is not this little building here. The temple is not the one in Salt Lake City. The temple is not the one in Rome. The temple is you. You are the temple that God wants to dwell in and express Hisself through it, that all nations might know Him. You are living images of God that God wants to work through.
And any time that any man, or any woman, will forget all the falsehood that they've heard in the world, and come back to the line of the Scripture, and will keep in line, just like Solomon did to what Moses did, Moses did to what God did, God always respected it...

DEDICATION_ ELIZABETHTOWN.KY SUNDAY_ 62-1111M
E-41 And if we will come back to the original dedication, and will open our hearts, and empty ourselves, God, in dedication as we give it to Him, will fill our temple with His Shekinah Glory. Then the living God will be moving in a living church, among a Living people and will spread forth His glory. Then together someday, one being this way, and one this way, and one in one part of the country, she'll come together to make the Bride. We'll be caught up in the air to meet Him.
Now, this lovely church, this building that the people with their tokens of their livelihood, with their love for Christ, the worshippers has dedicating today this place of worship, that people could come and worship. Now, my sincere prayer is that every worship will--worshipper will dedicate his own temple to worship in the temple that's being dedicated for worship. That's the real dedication.

DEDICATION_ ELIZABETHTOWN.KY SUNDAY_ 62-1111M
E-42 So as our time is gone, but God has no time. Let us remember. How late is it? I'm looking at old people, and it may be later than you think. I'm looking at young people, young girls. Look at these little kids was found cut up the other day, them little girls ravished. How many of them die every year? Thousands with heart attacks, cancer, polio, anything that can kill them, accidents on the road. We don't know how young or how old. When is the time going to come? When's your card going to be called from the rack? No one knows that but God. That's right.
So while you are here today in the dedication of this material here, that worshippers are coming to worship the living God, why not dedicate ourselves to the worship of the living God, and let Him fill us with Himself? And then we shall see the Shekinah Glory return again to the house of the living God, which is the human body, the church of the living God, together in a great revival that would sweep through this country, and around these towns, and all out through here. There'll be such a noise, why, they--they couldn't stop it. There's no way of doing it.

DEDICATION_ ELIZABETHTOWN.KY SUNDAY_ 62-1111M
E-43 Do you think you could stop Stephen? Why, he was like a--a house on fire in a high wind. Why, you couldn't stop him. Even the Sanhedrin couldn't stop him, and you know even death itself didn't stop him. He lived on, and he lives today, and he always will live because he had Eternal Life and a house dedicated to the service of God.
I think the thing for this church to do this morning in respect of all that's been done, as we offer God the building for service, let's offer ourselves also.

'Tis time--'Tis time--To...

UPDATE.

I know it. But I've been avoiding it. Because it seems as if I won't have anything happy to say until my BREAK BEGINS at 3:30 tomorrow afternoon--and I'm FREEEE for five days! Isn't it funny--until I became a teacher, I never realized that the teachers want breaks just as badly--if not worse--than the students. All I know is I currently need one... and will be thrilled to take any snow days that God will, in His infinite mercy, give me this year! But in truth, His mercy will carry me through this year, and has already. And I'm so thankful for that. I was just thinking the other day about the kingdom of God. It's something my pastor has been preaching on lately, and I hope that it's begun to take root in my heart and life. It made me think about this: we spend so much time absorbed in the kingdoms of this world--our jobs, traffic, media, news, wars, pain and suffering... The list goes on and on. And we learn the kingdom of this world well. We can repeat its mantras, demonstrate how to survive, and complain with the best of them.

But when we've so thoroughly learnt the world's kingdom--gotten it down-pat--then we go about to learn God's Kingdom--of joy, peace, and righteousness in the Holy Ghost. It makes me wonder if I'm not defeating myself, this focus on Satan's Eden. Lord, am I really learning the ways of your Kingdom? I pray I am, one step at a time, through the Great Tutor.

HEARING.RECEIVING.AND.ACTING.title CHATAUQUA.OH 60-0607

E-14 014 A carnal mind wants God to bring the birthright down to their level. But for me, and I believe all true born Christians, we meet it on God's level. I don't care what I have to do, or what I have to say, how I have to act: the only thing, I want it. That's means more than my popularity. That means more than my job. It means more than my mother, means more than my wife, more than my children, more than every friend I got. Let me have that birthright. I don't care what I have to pay. I want to meet God on His requirement. Whatever He requires, if it's fall in dust, if it's speak with tongues, if it's run through the building and act like a maniac, or stand on my head, I don't care what it is, just so I get it. That's the main thing. That's the spiritual minded people. They want the birthright, regardless.

They want it. And as soon as they get it, it sets up the same reaction it was in that family. Finally, it'll come to a place till there come a separation. A man will have to obtain, if he obtains this birthright, he will have to separate himself from the world, just as Jacob had to.

HEARING.RECEIVING.AND.ACTING.title CHATAUQUA.OH 60-0607

E-15 015 My, sometimes it means walk alone. But if you really are sincere, and you really receive the birthright, you don't care to walk alone. If the neighbors won't invite you anymore over to dinner, if nobody will have anything to do with you, what difference does it make to you? As long as you've got the birthright, that's the main achievement of your life. As long as I'm borned of the Holy Spirit, what difference does it make? Long as I'm on my road to heaven, what difference does it make what the people say as long as we're walking in the Spirit? And all that's borned of the Spirit of God, are led by the Spirit of God. Sons and daughters of God are led by the Spirit of God, always walking in the beautiful light of holiness, cleanliness.

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THINGS.THAT.ARE.TO.BE.title RIALTO.CA V-4 N-6 65-1205
37 027 Therefore, the Bride in the rapture will come forth, and there it's all preplanned by God, all backed up. From the beginning He knowed every man, every place, who would set, all about it. It's all preplanned. God knew it would be here, and--and when He made it that way so that when we get there--He's gone to prepare a place for us, and when we get there, it'll all be prepared just like even this night is prepared, like this hour is prepared. This...

THINGS.THAT.ARE.TO.BE.title RIALTO.CA V-4 N-6 65-1205
38 028 His great foreknowledge tells Him all these things, by foreknowledge. He's omnipresent because He's omniscient; omniscient because He's omnipresent. Therefore, by His foreknowledge... Now, He can't be just like the wind over the earth, because He is a Being. He just isn't a myth; He's a Being. He dwells; He even dwells in a house. He dwells in a place called heaven; and therefore, by His omni--being omnipresent--being omniscient, knowing all things, then He is omnipresent because He knows all things.
You... Now, you grew from your birth... When you was born and presented into this world, God knew that you were going to be here in this earth, and you growed from birth to maturity. Things that seem so strange to you in your young womanhood, young boyhood, as children, now seems very real. You couldn't understand it when you was a child, but now as you become adult, you begin to understand and find out that everything was just set just right. And you... It really means something to you now.

THINGS.THAT.ARE.TO.BE.title RIALTO.CA V-4 N-6 65-1205
40 029 So is it in your spiritual birth. You do things that you don't understand when you're a little baby, come to the altar and you give your life to Christ. You do such strange things. You wonder why you did it. But after while when you mature, as matured Christians, then you understand it. See? There's something picks up and you see why you had to do it. Your spiritual birth... Your natural birth types your spiritual. How--how it fitted to you. In this life as you grew, everything fitted right in, because you were made for that.
Wasn't it a strange thing the night that you staggered into the mission, the tent meeting, or the little church somewhere on the corner, and something, a preacher preached on a certain subject, and you just fell right at the altar? See, see? God knew that before the foundation of the world. See? It--it seemed strange to you why you did it then, but now you understand. You knew what happened. And so fitting to you in this life and will be also in the life that is to come. This world and it's life seems to--to advance as you mature. Everything seems to go right with you.

THINGS.THAT.ARE.TO.BE.title RIALTO.CA V-4 N-6 65-1205
41 030 I don't believe in a--that a person just happened to be here by chance. Now, just think: when you come to the--the world, everything had to be foreprepared for you, or preprepared, rather, for you. I don't hardly understand that how that we could think that a God that could prepare all these good things for us would not--we could not put trust in Him, that if He brought us in this chaos that we're in now and prepared the good things of life for us here, how much more can we trust Him to prepare the things that is to come (See?), the eternal things.

God Bless!