Strengthen what remains

If you want to lay down deep roots for the storm to come, The Bible is the way to go.
Daily reading The Word of God.
It will water your soul and nourish your spirit when the times of drought come knocking.
The Bible says the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12
When you lavish yourself daily in God's Word, you not only strengthen the spirit within you, you also weaken the flesh. That means it will be easier to say no to the world and all its devices.
When you commune with God through the daily reading of His Word, you strengthen your understanding of the Father's heart and His plan for you.
When you drench yourself in the Living Water of God's Word, you give yourself protection through the Armor of God to withstand the schemes and attacks of satan, and the wisdom to see through them.
When you soak in the Word of God, you bring light to your darkened path and The Word illuminates your steps before you.
The Bible says God's Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
The Word of God is the very nourishment we need to withstand the seductive call of this world and remember that our place is in heaven.
Everything about this world is a cleverly devised trap; the money, the status, the "do what feels good" appeal.. The "look at me!" hunger..
These are all designed to make you sell out, lose sight of eternal matters, and distract your heart from its God given purpose.
When you burrow deep down into the Word of God, you start to become aware of this. It changes the perspective of your heart from the inside flowing out.
Dumb things that once had power over you, like looking good and "keeping up with the Jones's" just start to fade into the background of unimportance as your heart begins to aline with The Fathers through the reading of His Word.
As you can see, it is vitally important to feed yourself with the daily Word of God! But some of you may feel a bit overwhelmed and might not really know where to begin.. When I start to fall off the bandwagon and begin to feel lost, I start by reading the very Words of Jesus himself, through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That gives me a great diving board into the rest of God's Word.
Then there are times that my eyes feel tired and I don't want to read the Bible. Or maybe I can't physically hold the Bible and read it at the moment.
That's totally fine! I have downloaded the Bible Gateway app on my phone and there is an option to listen to each chapter in the Bible through audio Bible. I use this quite often actually and am still able to soak in the message of God's Word.
It has been vitally important to remain in God's Word for me, especially when going through depression where it's easy to forget His deep love for me.
It brings me right back to where I should be; that place of deep trust in God's plan.

What's the point?

I'm not the person I used to be.. I'm not nice Sarah anymore.. I'm bitter and angry and.. done. This has changed me for the worst.
The thing is..I just don't care anymore.. I really don't.. I just don't give a crap..
And maybe that's actually a good thing.. maybe I just cared way too much before?

To my son

The day I found out I was pregnant with you, I was so excited! Daddy and I had been trying to bring your sister a sibling for years! It seemed too good to be true and I guess it was..
I don't understand why you couldn't stay. I had such vivid dreams of you. I was eight weeks pregnant. You were in mommy's tummy and I was losing you. I was begging the Drs to do something but they kept telling me you would be just fine as long as your heart was still beating. Then you fell out of me and I screamed at the Drs but they just kept repeating that you would be fine as long as your heart was still beating. When I held you up to show the Drs, you had suddenly grown to be a newborn and were beautiful with your lush, dark hair and long eyelashes. I stared down at you in disbelief. But I knew it was too late and you were gone from me.
Then later I dreamt that I was eight weeks pregnant with you and saw a bulge in my tummy. I poked it with my finger and to my dismay, you began wriggling. I knew it was way too soon to be able to see you move and the movements got bigger and bigger until you pressed your whole profile against my stomach so hard that I could see it.
Then you pushed right through and were suddenly on the outside of me. I looked down as I held you in my arms and you went from baby to little boy. You were still just so beautiful! You looked like a little Adam only with darker hair and eyes.
I guess I should have known it wouldn't last because there was always something wrong with my pregnancy in my dreams. But never you; you were perfect.
Then your Aunt Liz told me about this cute little boy she dreamt about. He was standing in dinosaur pajamas and giggling.. when I asked her what he looked like, that was the same little boy I had been dreaming about. She described you to a tee.
The day I went in for my follow-up appointment, I knew when I looked up at the screen that I had lost you. You were still so tiny and had no heartbeat.
Your big sister looked up at the screen in confusion, asking where her baby was..
The tech then confirmed what I already knew. You did not survive in my body.
It was like someone stuck a knife deep inside my chest when I heard those words. I lay on the exam table blinking back tears, trying to be strong for your sister, while all my hopes and dreams faded away.
I felt hollow inside as I put my clothes back on and walked out the door to wait for the Dr to talk to me.
Everything he said seemed meaningless as I sat there crying and trying to wrap my mind around never getting to have you.
When I got through, they had me schedule a follow-up appointment to monitor the situation.
I had trouble driving home with your sister in the back seat. I wore sunglasses even though it was raining outside, so no-one would see me cry.
When I got home, I resolved not to tell your daddy what had happened at the appointment until after work. But he was home for lunch and standing in the driveway. He looked right at me as I pulled in and I tried so hard to fake a smile. I got out and as he was getting your sister out of her car seat, he looked at me again and I knew he could tell. Then I burst into tears and cried in his arms. Your daddy was crying too.
I didn't eat lunch that day even though I was still having morning sickness.
That day, most of this two days has been a blurr. A daze.
I spent most of it laying in bed and crying myself to sleep. Then waking up and crying some more.
All this time I had felt what I thought was you moving but it turned out to be my uterus contracting, trying to expel..
I am heart broken that I will never meet you in this world, that you will never grow up playing with your sister, I will never get to experience those precious milestones and the funny things you'd say.
I guess I will just have to settle for finally meeting you in the other side someday soon. At least you will never have to experience the pain and darkness of this broken world.
I love you and will always have a you-shaped hole in my heart, son.
Until we meet, love you always!
Mommy-

Dream 02/22

In my dream, I was about to go get married. I was Catholic in this dream and it was this religious ritual that you had to wear this certain underskirt/garment thing under your wedding dress before you could get married. It was very important in the Church and was pretty much expected of you.
I felt very distressed as I looked everywhere for this petty coat skirt type thing that I was supposed to have. I couldn't find it anywhere and went to this church store type place to see if they had one I could use and they didn't have one. I asked them if it was really that important to wear it if they didn't even have one in stock and they stressed that it absolutely was! So I went looking in my attic for this thing, all so I could finally get married.
When I couldn't find it anywhere, I realized it was sitting under my vanity stool, right under my nose the entire time.
I picked it up to put it on so I could finally go get married and I remember it looked like a wedding pedicoat and although it was white, had patriotic designs and colors on it. I believe it had the Union Jack..
Then I rushed off to go get married.

Dream 1/18

I had a dream that my sister was trying to steal some of my makeup while I was putting mine on and I told her to get her own and she couldn't have any of mine because it was expensive. We ended up arguing until a headline in the paper caught my attention and completely shocked me.
In this strange news story, an alien resembling a woman had fallen overboard on a ship and drowned and they had found she had been pregnant with two somewhat alien looking babies. The strange thing is these babies were two very different ages (one was even years older) and everyone had nearly survived still.. They were very concerned for this strange mothers children and were doing what they could to save them.
But then I asked my sister if she had seen this story yet, she said she'd barely caught it so we turned on the news to follow what was happening.
On the news, they were talking about this accident and that the two babies of different age were found out to be Trumps babies. The weird thing was even though they had survived and were hanging on for life, they were talking about how they were going to study them. Then it flashed to a picture of them dissecting these babies and I knew that they wouldn't be able to survive if they were being dissected like that, yet they were still talking about how concerned they were these children wouldn't survive.

Dream 1/16

I was witnessing the nazi soldiers find the trap door that led to Anne Frank and families hiding place.. It felt so real!
They found them and grabbed them out just like they were animals.. not even a thought that they could be human!
I was devastated and started weeping and asking the nazi soldiers to look again at who stood before them and see the humanity. And that we are all humans and what is wrong with you that you can't see this?
They were SO brainwashed by propaganda and had been that way for so long it was like they couldn't even see they were the same anymore!
After I talked with the soldiers, they started to wake up just a little and see them as sorta human and treat them a little more gently at least.
However, I knew in my spirit that they were still taking them away to the camp..
This didn't change things because the canon of propaganda had already been lit and it was too late to snuff it out at this point.. so much damage had already been done.. =(

Dream 2/12

I had a dream last night that I was with a friend in a big high school and they were telling me they knew who the antichrist was and that it had been shown to them.
They showed me a iron vice and told me God had shown it to them a few days ago and told them it was the antichrist and told them this message would make sense in three days. The person took this literally that the vice was the antichrist.
There was suddenly the white horn of a cow or ram in the vice and the iron vice jaw tightened down on it and crushed it with ease. It was then that it all made sense and came to me. I told the person that the vice was symbolic of the person the antichrist would be and what they would do, not to be taken literally.
I then told them there were four things meant by the symbol of the vice:
1- they would be destructive and destroy with ease.
2- they would be powerful and subdue nations.
3- once they set their hand to crush, there would be no wiggle room or strength to escape their jaws for those being crushed
4- they would be destructive in general but would have a specific agenda to destroy God's people in particular.

My Aunt suddenly spoke up from across the room and said to my friend that this message I had just explained to them was the actual message they were waiting for and reminded them God told them the message would be delivered in three days and that this was the third day since he was told that and shown the vice.

I agreed and said that God had used me to explain the mystery of the vice he was shown and that it was indeed exactly three days since he was told this and then cautioned him once again not to take the symbolism of the vice literally.

Then the scene changed and for some reason there were a company of people who were quickly dropping feces through the halls of the school, in preparation for something. They were hurrying to do it as they knew they were running out of time to get it done.

Flying

My husband and I were walking with our daughter Rachel this past week. We had gone almost a mile and a half through a foot of snow when her little legs just couldn't take anymore. She asked if daddy or I could carry her. I told her that I would carry her a little while to give her a rest and to just relax and let mamma carry her.
I was really starting to struggle under the weight of carrying this 32 pound preschooler through the deep snow after a while, but I didn't let her know it. I kept switching her weight from hip to hip for a little while until I just couldn't keep carrying her. I was really struggling but, worried that she hadn't had a long enough break, I kept pushing on.
She must have sensed the struggle because she suddenly pipped up, "Ok, Mamma. I want to walk again now."..
I was so relieved to hear those words and gently set her down to walk on her own again.
I occurred to me that we could not have made that walk through the deep snow a successful one without both of us sharing the burden; I could not have kept up carrying her for long without falling over from muscle fatigue and she could not have kept walking through all that deep snow without the short breaks of mommy and daddy carrying her.
We all worked together as a team and together got the job done.
Such is the Body of Christ! We can't keep going without excessive burnout unless everyone does their own little part and picks up the weight when someone else is starting to struggle under the load.
It's an intricate dance of give and take, so simple in concept yet profoundly beautiful as we weave our way through the layers of self sacrifice that help embody the Kingdom of Heaven.
After all, isn't this what it's all about? The greatest of these is love. What greater love than taking the burden off one who can no longer bear it?
I believe we are at a critical time in our nation and are soon going to need to pull together and rely on each other more than ever now!