I cannot help thinking…

I cannot help thinking about how close the time is getting. I am not a date setter, but Yeshua (Jesus) does tell us to watch for the signs of the times. There are prophecies being fulfilled before our eyes that indicate He may be returning very soon…possibly within the next few years. (And I am NOT talking about the so-called modern-day prophecies of wealth and prosperity being around the corner!) In Genesis, we are told:

Gen 1:14-19 CJB God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to divide the day from the night; let them be for signs, seasons, days and years; (15) and let them be for lights in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth”; and that is how it was. (16) God made the two great lights — the larger light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night — and the stars. (17) God put them in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth, (18) to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. (19) So there was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

That Hebrew word for “seasons” is not the four seasons of the year. It is the seasons as in the “times”. In fact, even more important, the word “moedim” means “appointed times”. These are times specifically appointed by G-d for significant things. The feasts are moedim. The Shabbats (sabbaths) are moedim. In fact, I highly recommend doing a search on that Hebrew word in the bible and reading the verses where it is used. You might be surprised at what you find. (E-sword is a free bible program by Rick Meyers that you can use on your computer that allows that kind of searching. Rick does excellent work.)

There are very interesting things happening. For instance, there are going to be four blood moons (called a tetrad) within this year and the next that consecutively fall upon biblical feasts. Yes, blood moons have happened previously, but what is rare is when they land consecutively on biblical feasts. When they have coincided with feasts, significant things for Israel and/or for the Jewish people have happened either on or very near by those dates. While there are many articles out there, each with its own take and all informative, I highly recommend looking at what Mark Biltz has to say since he is the one who, apparently, first stumbled onto this and he has been studying it for a while. Here is a link to his site. El Shaddai Ministries. Here are a couple of videos:

Another interesting thing to look at are the prophecies of Judah Ben Samuel. The mark of a true prophet of G-d is two things…that his/her prophecies come true and that he/she does not teach the people to walk away from G-d’s laws. Here are some links about Judah Ben Samuel and his prophecies regarding Jerusalem.  Just Five Years till “end times” commence?; The Prophecy of Jubilees by Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel and Israel: Between Mysticism and Reality from Israel Today. As with anything, I caution you to read, watch and listen with an ear to our Creator and an eye on the scriptures.

There are so many prophecies in scripture that I see taking place. Israel’s existence is a huge one. Look at Ezekiel 37 and 38. Gosh, look at all the prophets and at the prophecies that have not yet come true!

Sadly, there are some who believe an evil teaching…a heresy…that the Christian church has somehow replaced Israel when it comes to G-d’s blessings. Funny thing, although they believe Israel no longer is part of G-d’s picture and plan, they do believe that the curses still belong to her and her people. This cannot be! Please, read the entire passage from which the following verses come and then, if you believe this horrible lie, I beg of you to be done with it!!

Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.” Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel For all that they have done,” declares the LORD.   Jer 31:35-37

Please note that the things mentioned in those verses have NOT come to pass. Consider this, too: if He is not faithful in His promises to Israel, how do we know He will be faithful in His promises to us? I worship a G-d who is Faithful and True. He sent Messiah through the Jewish people. All the scriptures and even the very feasts He gave us point to Messiah. I could do a whole other post about how Yeshua fulfilled feasts on His previous coming and will fulfill more on His next.

While the “church” fails to stand up for Truth and Righteousness while quibbling about non-essential things, the world goes on its merry way unwarned about the destruction to come. Time is short and we truly are seeing times “like the days of Noah”.

One last video I urge you to watch (and I do plan to repost it, along with the others) is this one. Forget the “Noah” movie with Russell Crowe. Even its producer claims it “the least biblical movie ever made”. Forget “Son of God” which is made by new agers and paints a horrible, wimpy, powerless image of Yeshua/Jesus). Instead, watch things like “God’s Not Dead” (which I cannot recommend enough) and the following video, “Noah and the Last Days”.

The Seasons of Life

Some seasons in life are easier to go through and some are harder. In some, we feel on top of the world and like things are going great. We know hardships will come, but we feel confident of sailing through them. Some of that confidence is built upon having gone through hard times before and/or we may feel that we have “paid our dues”. G-d forbid that our confidence should come from thinking we have “arrived”! There is always more to learn and more from which to be refined. This is a fact…and, sometimes, it is a rather painful fact.

Sometimes, being the subject of gossip is a part of a hard season. There is within us, this desire to stand up and shout at the world “that isn’t true” or “you misunderstand” or “don’t judge a whole family by the actions of one (or more) member”. Sometimes, you want to say “hey, try walking in my shoes and see if you would really do it any differently”. Whatever the reason for the gossip, whether it is based upon “truth” or is completely lies, it is a hard season to be in.

We can be thrust into a hard season by the actions of a family member or a loved one. It can be very easy to think that no one in “our” family (or group of close friends) would ever do (fill in the blank)…until someone does. “That may happen in other families,” we may think, “but not in ours!” Not our child, sibling, parent, spouse, friend! And then suddenly, something does happen.

At first, you are simply in shock and reeling while trying to get your bearings again. How do you make sense of your world when blindsided by the “unthinkable”? It sure isn’t easy. You are trying to learn to live with a deep wound in your heart and also figure out where You can find support.

Of course, as people of faith, the first place we should be able to go for support is our faith family. Correct? Sadly, not so correct. The body of Messiah is made up of very imperfect people. When we are going through a really hard season, we have to be very discerning and selective regarding who we allow to know the details. Yet, there is also a time for taking chances so that we do not completely isolate ourselves. The key is in knowing when and who to trust. I have no easy answer for that.

Our moving will give us a chance to start over in a new place.  We won’t have all the work of Beit-Shalom hanging over us. We will not have people gossiping about us. We will be able to find, hopefully, a good Messianic congregation to attend in person. We will be able to build deeper relationships with some family members. Dave will have a chance to heal or get onto disability. We will be taken care of and will be able to be with family, possibly even until Yeshua comes back.

Whatever our heavenly Abba wants for us…that we will do.

Letting Go of Dreams

We are letting go of Beit-Shalom. It is up for sale. We have never been able to finish it and, with Dave being in a lot of pain 24/7 and no money, we won’t be able to now, either. Our middle son and daughter-in-love have invited us to move in with them so that Dave can get off his feet and not have all the work of trying to take care of Beit-Shalom and the property hanging over his head. He needs to get off of his feet. So, we are planning on moving to Texas!

Our dream was to provide a place of shelter for people who needed to get away and find some peace. We wanted people to be able to come and sense G-d’s shalom on our property and in our house. We talked about what we hoped we could do with the land to make it inviting and retreat-like. That was the dream we had.

For many reasons, the dream never came to pass and the storms of life have continued to buffet us. We have had other dreams that also did not come to pass, which has led us to ask the obvious question, “why not?”.

Of course, the first thing to look at is our choices. Did we make poor choices? While I am not about to say we made all perfect choices (we obviously did not), I do believe that we did make pretty decent choices overall. We got hit with a lot of things and tried to make the best decisions we could with what we knew and what we had at our disposal. We were left reeling many times in various ways, but we just kept standing in faith and moving forward as best we could.

We also need to consider all the things that were beyond our control…and there were many, both positive and negative. We have been through a lot of things. Hardship. Betrayal. Miracles. Blessings. Attacks. Support. Gossip. Being cared about and for. We have seen the hand of Abba move in so many amazing ways and the hand of our adversary trying to steal our joy. I could go on, but you get the idea. Life happens. We have seen good and bad and Abba has gotten us through it all.

As Dave and I were praying a few mornings ago, we were thinking about how our vision for Beit-Shalom has not happened. Suddenly, I got a picture in my mind of a man pushing against a huge boulder in the pathway. It made me think of the story in which G-d tells a man to push a boulder. (You can find a version of the story here.) When I shared it with Dave, he said what I was thinking…that it was about obedience, not “success”. We both felt that Abba was saying that it did not matter that our dreams and visions had not come to pass. We were not failures and it was not bad for us to dream. Abba had given us dreams to aim for, just as G-d told the man to push against the boulder in the story. It was not about accomplishing the dreams, but about being obedient to Abba. It was about what He was doing within us and others through our obedience.

We have wanted to be used by G-d. He has been using us, albeit not as we imagined He would. But that is OK. We are here to serve Him for His kingdom purposes. We have learned a lot. I am praying that, in Texas, a break will finally come for us. We really need one.

Dear Abba — Your People

Shalom, Abigail! Let us come together to the Source of all Living Water! :-)  Abigail

Dear Abba,
I lift up all of Your people.

I pray blessings over them
and encouragement.

May they be springs of Living Water
as Your Ruach flows in them
and through them
to the world around them.

As our hearts cry out to You and
deep calls to deep,
fill us all with the
joy of Your salvation.

Bring Your healing,
Your comfort
and Your strength
to us.

Bring Your wisdom,
and Your knowledge
to us.

Make us people who
understand how much we have
been forgiven
and help us to be
forgiving of others.

May we walk
as Yeshua walked.

May we live according to Your ways
as Yeshua lived.

May we obey You always
as Yeshua obeyed.

May we think more of others
than we do of ourselves.

May we love You with all of our being.

May we love others as ourselves.

May we not do wrong
or anything that is evil
in Your sight.

May we do what is good
and right
in Your sight.

Abba, I pray that all
of Your people
whom You have created
will come to recognize You
as their Creator
and Your Son
as their Messiah.

I pray that all who worship You
will do so in Spirit and in Truth.

May Your Chosen ones
come back to You
and may they recognize
who Yeshua really is.

Bring Your Shalom
to Y’israel,
to Yerushalayim,
to Your people.

We look forward to the coming
of Mashiach
at His appointed time
according to Your plan.

May we be watching
and ready,
especially as we see so many
signs of His near coming!

b’shem Yeshua

Embed Facebook Posts on Your WordPress.com Site

Abigail:

What a cool idea!

Originally posted on WordPress.com News:

Using your WordPress.com site as your digital hub on the web just got a bit easier. We’re delighted to let you know that you can embed Facebook posts directly into posts and pages on your blog. Here’s how.

First, click on the date stamp under any post to grab the post’s URL:

You’ll be taken to the page for that individual update. Copy the URL in the address bar:

Paste the URL of the Facebook post directly into your post editor on its own line:

Here’s what the embedded post looks like in all its glory:

Embedding works for photo posts, too:

For a bit more information, check out our Facebook Integration support document.

You may also be interested in:

• Your Blog, Plus One: Connect and Share on Google+
• Share from your WordPress.com Site to Path
• Embed Tweets and YouTube Videos with the Media Explorer

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Sukkot…Inside?

I like Sukkot. Well, actually I like all the feasts…the moedim…the appointed times…of the L-rd. (I even like Yom Kippur and did my first Yom Kippur fast this year.)

What is special about Sukkot to me is that our Messiah Yeshua was born on Sukkot. What an awesome thought. Born on the first day and getting his b’rit milah (circumcision) on the 8th day (which is really Simchat Torah). Simchat Torah means the joy of the Torah. Yeshua is our living Torah, so how fitting that his b’rit milah would be on Simchat Torah!

Every time the Fall feasts come, I think of Yeshua’s coming return. At the last trump, He will call us up. The trumpets are blown on Yom Teruah…the Feast of Trumpets…and on Yom Kippur. What an amazing time to be alive, when there are so many signs of His soon return.

It used to be we would look to see if any headlines fit the prophecies in scripture. Now, it is like almost all of them fit in some way. And the more I learn of G-d’s calendar, the moedim and the phrases Yeshua used that His Jewish contemporaries would have understood, the more excited I get. The more I learn, the more in awe I am at how our Creator has given us so much information…if we will just study His word! So many things are pointing to His soon return.

We cannot do Sukkot outside. Between the potential for rain, bug bites and not having a space close to the house cleared off enough to use, we do Sukkot inside. Here are photos of our make-shift sukkah. Pardon the mess!

On a Sunday Morning…

You know the expression… “if the L-rd don’t come and the creek don’t rise”? Well, the L-rd didn’t come (not in all His glory, anyway), but the creek sure did rise! It was a raging torrent when we got up. So, there was no going off the property for us this morning.

Instead, we redug trenches to divert more of the rain off the driveway. We moved rock and dirt and filled some holes. It was raining most of the time, but that is the best time to dig trenches because you can see how well they are working! The rain was not cold and it kept the mosquitoes off. By the time we finished, though, it had stopped raining and they started biting.

Here is a question for you…what is the difference between Indiana mosquitoes and California ones? (See the bottom of this post for the answer.)

As I am writing this, it has suddenly started to pour down again…and I do mean pour! It was loud. No lightning or thunder, just a loud phwoosh of water streaming out of the skies.

Thankfully, Dave was able to get the van across the creek during the let-up earlier. He and Elias walked over the neighbors to get back across, though, because their mudders have too many holes in them. (Abba, about those mudders…the guys need new ones and I need taller ones…please.)

Well, I guess the skies were doing a quick dump by the bucketfuls because it has already slowed down to a very mild and light rain. The wind is blowing the leaves in the trees, but the downpour has stopped.

Elias is laying down because he thinks he may have pulled a leg muscle from moving rock. Dave is laying down because he really should not have been working out there, but that is the kind of man he is. He won’t let his wife and son work out there without going out himself…even if it means he pays for it. What a gem I have married.

I have been working on slowly finishing painting the floors. More of the bathroom is painted and I have been working on the laundry room. The other day I did under the dryer. Today I am doing underneath the washer. Bit by bit, it will all get done. Here is the laundry room:

Dave is frustrated at not being able to do things around Beit-Shalom, but it is slowly happening. The dryer is now vented to the outside and the bathtub in the bathroom is sealed and ready for the sides to be glued on. Yay!

Well, that is my day so far. I hope your day is going well. I am feeding my spirit with Messianic music and hope to get back to my Hebrew studies soon.

B’rakhot and Shalom, Aleichem.

** The difference between Indiana mosquitoes and California mosquitoes is that you can feel the Indiana ones drilling into you. You can get them before they get their fill. Ha!

Dear Abba — Thankfulness in the Midst of Pain

Shalom!  Let us follow Him together, through the rocky places and the dry places.  :-)  Abigail

Dear Abba…
sometimes the path is SO rocky
and the climb is SO steep!

We stub our toes
and step on jagged stones
as we fight to climb
to the high places
You are calling us to.

It HURTS, Abba!

We know You are refining us.
We know You have a plan
and a purpose
for all that
You allow.

We WANT to be ALL
that You have created us to be,
ALL that You
designed us to be.

When our flesh cries out
against the struggles
of this life,
please,
remind us of who we are
in You.

Remind us of
Your amazing love for us.

Remind us that
we are called according to
Your purpose
and Your love.

Remind us that
the battle has been won
and we just have to
remain steadfast
in that truth.

Remind us that You cause
all things to work together
for GOOD,
even when we cannot see it
right now.

Thank You…
for loving us,
for creating us,
for guiding us,
for teaching us,
for healing us,
for comforting us,
for providing for us,
for giving us Your wisdom,
for giving us Your strength.

May we love You with
all our hearts,
all our souls,
all our minds
and all our strengths.

May we love our neighbors
as ourselves.

May we love our siblings
in Yeshua.

May we spend time this Shabbat
with You
as You have called us to do.

B’shem Yeshua

Dear Abba – Kvetching

Shalom!  Let us follow Him together, through the rocky places and the dry places.  :-)  Abigail

Abba…it is so easy to kvetch (complain)
about how life is going for us.
Yet, in kvetching, we are saying that Your will is
not good enough!

We know that nothing catches You by surprise.

Nothing happens that You don’t either
cause
or
allow.

Period.

We also know that You turn ALL things
to good,
whether we can see it now
or not.

You use ALL things for
the good
of Your kingdom,
of others,
of us.

Sometimes, You give us insight as to
why we are going through these things.
And it is awesome when we can see
Your hand clearly in them.

But oftentimes, we are in the “dark”.
All we can do is trust You,
Your Name,
Your reputation,
Your promises.

You have gotten us through
every single thing
we have experienced thus far.
If that were not true,
we would not be here!

Abba, please help us to
see Your hand in our lives
and to trust You even more
when we don’t.

Help us to truly lay our lives down
as Yeshua has called us to do,
without kvetching
and in total trust
as a child trusts his/her
loving Father,
Abba,
Daddy,
Papa.

You are Avinu,
our Father.
And You love us with an
everlasting love
that nothing can take away.

May we turn our hearts to You this day.

May we walk in Your ways.

May we always be mindful
of the fact
that You have our good
in mind,
no matter what we see
or hear
or experience.

May we always remember that
You are here with us.

Your Ruach/Spirit
indwells us…
something that is challenging for us
mere humans
to truly comprehend.
Yet, it is true!

May we also remember
that Yeshua
paid our debt in full.

We are free to
love
and serve
and obey
You because
He has set us free.

Toda raba!
Thank You very much!

Teach us.
Change us.

Help us to love You with
all our hearts,
all our souls,
all our minds,
all our might.

Help us to love our neighbors
as ourselves
and to love one another.

I ask these things
b’shem Yeshua
(in the name of Yeshua)

Dear Abba 11 — Your Timing

Shalom! Let us join together in prayer for strength in the storms! :-)  Abigail

Dear Abba…
we know that Your timing is perfect.

During this time of the Fall feasts,
we think of new beginnings,
we think of repentance and
turning from our own ways
to Your ways.

We think of Messiah
who came 2000 years ago,
fulfilling the prophecies
within the Spring feasts
and who is coming again
to fulfill the prophecies
within the Fall feasts.

We have celebrated Yom Teruah,
the Feast of Trumpets
and, oh, how we long to hear
that final trumpet blast
signaling Messiah’s soon return.

We have celebrated Yom Kippur,
examining our hearts,
confessing our sins
and asking forgiveness.
We have gratefully acknowledged
what Messiah Yeshua
has done for us
in cleansing us and
removing the stain of our sins
and the debt we owe You for them.

As we are celebrating Sukkot,
the Feast of Tabernacles,
may we continue to look forward
in joyful anticipation
of Messiah once again
tabernacling with us on the earth,
reigning from Yerushalayim,
the holy city
on Mount Tzion.

Abba,
just as we know Your timing
is perfect in the big picture,
we also know Your timing
is perfect in all the details of our lives.

You see everything
and nothing happens
that is not either caused by You
or allowed by You.
You have our good and the good
of Your Kingdom
always in mind.

Sometimes, though,
it can be hard to see the good
in what is happening in our lives.
Please touch those of us who struggle
to see Your good,
who struggle to understand
Your plan and Your ways.

Open our eyes to see You
in every area of our lives.

Open our hearts to fully trust You
in all the things that are going on.

Bring Your comfort where needed.
Bring Your strength,
Your wisdom,
Your understanding,
Your rest,
Your provision,
and Your healing
of body, soul and spirit.

As we see the storm clouds gathering
around us,
around our nation
and all over the world,
may we seek,
above all else,
to love You with
all our hearts,
all our souls,
all our minds
and all our strengths/resources.

May we always recognize
Your incredible love for us
and see Your hand everywhere.

May we sense Your presence
in a very real way
and even feel Your arms around us
in a blessed and complete hug.

I ask these things, dear Abba,
as always,
B’shem Yeshua