My Pops figured this out

According to NASA (http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEdecade/LEdecade2011.html)

In the years 2014 and 2015 there will be two solar eclipses and four lunar eclipses, all of them occurring on Jewish Holy Days!

            The Lunar eclipses break down as follows:

            Passover                                 April 15, 2014

            Feast of Tabernacles              October 8, 2014

            Passover                                 April 4, 2015

            Feast of Tabernacles              September 28, 2015

            The two Solar eclipses connected with God’s Holy Days in 2014-2015 occur:

            Adar 29/Nisan 1(New Year)            March 20, 2015

            Feast of Trumpets                  September 13, 2015

The last time this happened was in 1949/1950, the year following Israel’s statehood, and 1967/1968, the year Jerusalem was liberated in the Six-Day War!  Before that, you have to go back to 1493 for four successive lunar eclipses on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. This will not happen again for hundreds of years.

  Joel 2:31 - the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

  Acts 2:20 - The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

   Jesus Christ Himself said, referring to the days before His second coming:  “And there will be fearful sights and GREAT SIGNS from heaven”  (Luke 21:11, KJV).  Christ went on, “And there will be SIGNS in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars . . .” (Luke 21: 25).

    “Now when these things BEGIN to happen, LOOK UP and LIFT UP your heads, because your REDEMPTION  draws near” (Luke 21:28).

Why is that?

You step forward, and I'm pushed back.
You step back and gasping for more.

And the things of this world will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

[In]dependence

I'm pretty used to being depended on. I seem to find that place naturally in a lot of my relationships. I'm really independent, and I think I rely on myself a lot, so I don't feel comfortable leaning on other people much. And I'm consistent, so maybe people find that comforting to have close. But I have one friend who I rely on 100%. It's been that way forever. I actually need her, and she's always been there. Just me and her.

I think she's ok without me. She can stand without me, she can rely on the people that are close to her, whether that's me or someone else. She's would miss me if I was gone, but she will function just fine and I feel like I'll have a harder time.

I don't need anyone, but her. I trust her, and only her. She knows me, completely. She gets me, and that's rare. She laughs at me, which is an acquired taste. We just fit. We work.

I don't really feel comfortable in that position. It's not a mutual dependence. It's a mutual happiness and love, but we take very different roles. It's vulnerable, to need and not be needed.

I don't think I like it. It scares me a little.

Peanut Butter, Anyone?

I figure our relationship is like a jar of peanut butter.

When we first started out, I was willing to share. I gave you half my peanut butter, I think you enjoyed it. But I didn't feel like your pallet matched my taste. So I closed the jar. I said, no more peanut butter. You were completely hung up on its taste. You craved it, couldn't forget it, couldn't see that on the store shelf there are many other jars of peanut butter. You kept coming back for more. But I wasn't sharing anymore. You began digging your cold, wet spoon into me and helping yourself to spoonfuls of my goodness, and it hurt. I asked you to stop, but I guess I didn't tell you to stop. I just kept letting you, spoon after spoon. Less and less and less. You took it all from me, leaving me empty.

I have nothing left for you. I stopped inviting you in a long time ago, but you broke down the door and sucked everything out. And yet you still want more! You still crave it, remember it, strive for it in so many of the wrong ways. Had you left some peanut butter in my jar, we could have had something to work with. But you emptied me, pushed me over the edge, past the point of no return.

It must hurt, coming so often expecting peanut butter but finding the jar empty. So please leave me to collect my contents, so I can offer it again. Please don't take what I'm not giving you.

Please check aisle 5, with the canned food and the preserves.

One Billion. Correction: 11 Billion, haha.

Welcome to my world.

Ya, I think so.

No use forcin' it. It either comes and it's real, or it was never coming to begin with.

Full and Overflowing

One time I was listening to a podcast (Gone Fishing - Metropolitan Bible Church, free on iTunes) and it really spoke to me. Honestly, this doesn't happen often. There are only a handful of times where I can say that the sermon that was preached spoke directly to my life and impacted me so much that I was changed since I heard it. But this one did that. It was so relevant, so honest, so true, cut right through everything that was going on and made its way into my heart.

The content of the sermon isn't necessarily what matters to this story though. What happened after it was finished is the remarkable part.

Just minutes after the podcast finished, my friend called me. I often have a bad attitude towards this friend. They can sometimes rub me the wrong way making me a little rude, not willing to try to make things work and negative. They asked me a question that I had always hated hearing, always responded poorly to. The cool thing was my reaction was uncharacteristic of me. I was totally happy, totally unbothered, totally eager to help and go out of my way to make things work. I wasn't offended or annoyed or anything. I surprised myself, because I had no reason to be any different towards my friend than before, but I was. And I was happy to be - it felt good.

This has been a huge lesson to me. I think that spending time in God's word through someone's sermon, having (I don't want to say letting because I don't know what I did differently than what I do during any other sermon that I listen to), but having the words really have an impact on my life was the work of the Holy Spirit. I think that during that time, I was just renewed and filled with the Spirit, and because I was so full of Him, there was no room for myself left. I couldn't be selfish or angry or irritable, I was just content. It was so blatantly not me, so obviously something pouring out of me.

I long to be filled full of the Spirit that same way everyday. As much as I am a "good person," or so it seems, I am a different person when God is close and He takes over. Somehow, I need to capture this process so that I can ensure I allow God to fill me up everyday before I start my day, so that every action will be inspired by Him, and will inspire life and truth.

Just goes to show that you can't do it on your own, and that the power of the Holy Spirit is... empowering.

..

Tell me it's different this time.

Dr Seuss

Dr Seuss is rocking my world. He's genius!
His writing is almost like music; it's rhythmic and mathematical and flowing. It rolls off your tongue when you read it and it just works so good. He both planned it and carved it out perfectly. I love it! It feels so good in my head.
I didn't realize how many sayings he coined. They're such positive, quirky, catchy messages. I'm actually so inspired by this guy, haha. It's weird.
Check it out:
"And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he, is King of the Mud. That is all he can see."
“You are you. Now, isn't that pleasant?”
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
“Just tell yourself, Duckie, you're really quite lucky!” -- what does that even mean! Haha, I love it.
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.”  

I am thoroughly amused and oddly inspired by these silly, rhyming children's stories.