Hard times still better with God than without

I think about this blog every once in a while and how I thought I would be in a cool coffee house with some good coffee or tea just blogging my little heart out every day.  Well as you can see my blogs are pretty rare and I usually blog from the living room down the hall from where my room is.  Not very exciting I suppose heh.

So I should be downstairs making deviled eggs for the Benders going away party but since I have compulsive procristination syndrome or CPS as I just now made up...especially since I misspelled procrastination (<-------ha! got it right!) I am instead blogging.

Today was the CCO (Cornerstone Community Outreach)  Hunger Walk  2013, no it's nothing like the Hunger Games.  We had a very good turnout with 80 people from JPUSA showing up and thrown in 40 more people from churches the CCO office and we did good for hungry people all over Chicago.  Praise God, to you goes all the glory Father God!!!

I guess I should go downstairs to make that food since I really want to go The Crossing concert tonight!  It's always a good time at a Crossing concert! I may work the merch table for them as well.

This past week has been really bad but good for me as I have gone through some really hard struggles concerning my Christian walk.  I was in a pretty bad place.  God finally had to give me some peace just to pull me through it. While I am still seeking answers for the questions I have at least I am not in a dark fog of despair anymore.

The hardest part is that it was pretty evident that I was not in a good place and after God brought me out of it, one of the brothers a couple of days later affirmed the other brother who does breakfast and lunch cooking with me for "always being positive with a good spirit while working".  That hurt as I try to always be walking in the joy of the Lord but at the same time I never want to be fake in my walk.  The couple of days I went through were some of the roughest I have ever been through but the peace that I have now is more than worth the pain.  I just wish people (including me) understood how words can and do hurt sometimes.

That's it for now as I really am going to head down to cook those eggs.

Thanks for "listening" :)

Tim and Becky

Today a friend of mine got married. He married a very sweet woman. The wedding itself is a miracle for them both.  I cried at the wedding because I met him when he thought he would be alone forever after the end of his first marriage.  Unlike me though his wife left him, even after he tried multiple times to make his marriage work.  I personally do not know his new wife that well but I do believe she honestly tried to make her first marriage work as well.

Two people. Two failed marriages. Two sets of heartbreak.

One day, a glance. A thought. A chance.....

Today....two people, one body, one soul, a new life.

Another friend of mine Tammy Perlmutter spoke at the wedding and what she said is more profound than I could begin to inscribe myself.  I hope she doesn't mind but here is what she said.

 Tim and Becky love and worship and serve a God who rescues, redeems, and restores. He longs for broken hearts to be mended, for the lonely to be set in families, and for our losses to become our blessings.

All of us here can remember a time when disappointment, and possibly even despair, threatened to draw the breath from our lungs, and the life from our hearts. Tim and Becky have both experienced crushing losses of their own.

When our dreams take a turn we have not imagined or intended–when our dreams go careening off a cliff–we have a God who keeps us from going with them. When our plans and purposes shatter before our eyes, lying at our feet in a crumpled heap, we have a God who restores the years the locusts have eaten, who raises up age-old foundations, repairs broken walls, draws families together.
In one of her sonnets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”

This short verse has never left me. It haunts me because I need to be reminded all the time that the dreams we cherish the most, the ones we hope for with desperate longing, are merely substitute shadows compared to the gifts God has reserved for us.

I need to remember that it is only when we accept our losses that we can we have hands and hearts that are ready to receive God’s gifts, good gifts he delights to give us and promises to us as his children. Tim, Becky, Lukas, Eben, and Noble have been given the gift of each other, and we, as family and friends, have the privilege to be here today and celebrate with them because “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”

Ryan O’Neal, the songwriter of Sleeping At Last wrote this in his song “Emphasis:”

Life is a gorgeous, broken gift.

Six billion pieces waiting to be fixed.

The sweetest thing I’ve ever heard

Is that I don’t have to have the answers,

Just a little light to call my own.

Though it pales in comparison

To the overarching shadows,

A speck of light can reignite the sun

And swallow darkness whole.

This is how we come to be fixed, to be healed, by joining together, gathering together, celebrating with joy, together.
Marriages founded on and rooted in the Holy Spirit are these simple specks of light in a bleak and shadowy world. This is exactly why we are here today. This wedding, this marriage, this mysterious communion of flesh and spirit, anchored in the heart of God himself, is that speck of light that can reignite the sun and swallow darkness whole.
And that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.

my only desire

So today is Saturday June 8th, 2013.  I'm sitting in the third floor West side living room.  I have been here since around 6:15pm on the internet. Checking email and watching YouTube videos and posting on FB.  I have a couple new Christian friends on FB and I watched a video on musicians selling their souls for music.  Every genre was talked about from Garth Brooks, to the Beatles, to Brittney Spears and Madonna, and Marlyn Manson.  I have heard these things before and then God convicts me and I throw away all my worldly music but then before I know it I compromise and then I back into again with cd's and such.

I am getting rid of all worldly music again and sticking with only praise and worship.  Which I am more than happy to do as my only goal in life is to be one hundred percent in the will of God.  That my every action, thought, word, deed, INTENTION will be pleasing to God.

I pray that Jesus will forgive me my sins, every single sin both known and unknown. I pray that His blood will wash me clean.  Every single atom, every single particle that is Kenneth Paul Maese.  Inside and outside, that I would be purified with holy fire, and washed completely with the blood of Yeshua.  That I would be a holy and annointed vessel for the Glory and honor of God the Father, Jesus the Christ (Yeshua), and the Holy Spirit. I pray that God will fill me to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. That I would manifest to overflowing onto everyone and everything around me the fruit of the Spirit.

Father, I need you.  I need you more than I need air, more than I need food, more than I need water, more than I need anything else in this world.  I need you. Completely and utterly Abba.  I need you.  I forsake and turn completely from ALL my sins Abba, I repent, and cry out to your for mercy Abba, for you alone can save me from death and destruction.  Without you Abba life is not just meaningless, it is despair and agony and sorrow.  Life is without hope without you Abba.  Please Father, cleanse me and help me for my sins are every before me.  My thoughts are constantly wicked and evil.  Yet, your mercy and love endure forever.  You are faithful and just to forgive those who call on your name, who completely forsake all their sins and turn to you and you alone.

Father, make me into the man of God you have called me to me, let me HATE sin as you hate sin, let me love goodness as you love goodness, let me be holy and you are holy.  I want my garments to be whiter than snow Abba, I want my face to shine after seeing your glory, I want to love like you are love, I want to be one with you Abba, to live with you, to love you, to never ever leave you no matter who or what.

Help me Abba, I give you everything that I have, everything.  I withhold NOTHING from you God, I give it to you freely Abba, please help me to have a complete hunger and thirst for your Holy Word and for prayer.

I love you Abba, I love you Yeshua, I love you Holy Spirit.

Amen.  ♥   ♥   ♥