Love?

I just received this email and, for the life of me, I cannot fathom why I would receive it.  I am NOT in favor of "Gay rights!!!"     Why would I be in favor of something which destroys people?  I have the power within me to commit suicide but you probably would not be blessed by it.  No, resisting that temptation every time that it lifts it's ugly head in my life makes me the victor over my natural desires from having grown up an incest victim.  It means that I'm here for my family and friends instead of buried in the cemetery lying there forgotten and useless to God.      People have the right to break all of God's laws if they insist upon it.  They have that right to destroy their lives if they insist upon it.  The Bible is full of "Do this" and "Don't do that" and every one of them is for our GOOD!!! When will we people realize how much God loves us??????????  I know that it took me decades and I still struggle at times grasping how much God is for me.  Pastor Joseph Prince of Singapore(www.josephprince.org) has helped me more than any pastor to help me to grasp God's grace extended towards me from the cross.  His series, "Condemnation Kills" has freed me from the self-hatred that fuels my suicidal tendencies.  When I truly feel God's love for me, all I want to do is run towards him and soak it all up.  All I want is to live for Him and share His love with everyone. Yes, once a person learns to accept God's grace they can learn how to truly love themselves.  Only then is loving others even a possibility.  I am positive that God loves gay people as much as He loves everyone else.  I know that I sure do.     However, if someone were to come into my office and share with me that they're fighting suicidal tendencies, I would feel led to help them get the help that they need to keep living the life which God has for them.  I would do the same for someone who came to me for help with the miseries that their gay lifestyle is causing them.    I firmly believe that if a person fully grasped how much God loves them, they would no longer want to keep hurting themselves as a gay person.  Why don't they feel God's love?  I believe that it is because of feeling condemned all of their lives for every little thing that they do.  Where does this come from?   I believe that it comes from the churches.  Pastors haven't grasped God's grace and they're not teaching their parishioners to extend it to everybody.  Condemnation, like cancer, grows and spreads and takes over whole organizations.  Pretty soon everybody who enters the doors feels, as I have felt in nearly every church that I belonged to, that nothing they do is ever good enough.   After a lifetime of this kind of condemnation, people start linking the condemnation that they're feeling in organized religion with God which couldn't be further from the truth!  God blesses (read The Power of Blessing by Kerry Kirkwood) everybody!!  In fact, I learned in that book that if I ever condemn others with a superior attitude, then I have just placed myself in direct opposition to God!!!  He then must condemn me for my Pharasitical attitude and the blessings stop flowing into my life and who wants that? No, I do not condemn the people who wrote this email or those who cheered as our US Supreme Court brought condemnation upon itself by ignoring Scripture.  What we followers of God, our creator, must do is start blessing all involved in this type of thinking.  Let the church bless ALL people and it will again prosper and be a light in the darkness that it once was before condemnation took over and choked out God's love.  Let's let the judging of the Supreme Court rest in the hands of the Almighty and let's just bless EVERYBODY so God's love can again flow to ALL the hurting in our land!!     God bless, Dawn PS.  Yes, I did unsubscribe to their emails but I also want to take this opportunity to educate and to bless you all with God's sweet blessings of love, compassion, and sympathy for all who are hurting! Today we celebrate love and equality. The Supreme Court struck down the crushingly unjust "Defense of Marriage Act," which barred same-sex married couples from recognition by the federal government along with the rights and benefits (like Social Security) that comes with that recognition. And for gays and lesbians in California, the justices ruled that a lower court's ruling stands, ending enforcement of Proposition 8 and allowing all couples the freedom to marry under state law. Join us in this exciting moment in celebrating today's historic victory for equality. Share the image above with your friends and family on Facebook: Thanks to supporters like you, we helped win marriage equality in 13 states and the District of Columbia, and now federal benefits for same-sex couples. Today's decision is an incredible validation of the work we've done, and now is the time to celebrate before getting back to work to ensure everyone in every state has the freedom to marry. Thanks for your activism, which has made a difference. Jordan Krueger and the entire CREDO Action team CREDO Action 1. "Gay Rights Supporters Erupt in Cheers Over Ruling," Associated Press, June 26, 2013

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Seriously now

Hi everyone,

As much as I'd like to keep my mind focused on our care-free days spent in San Francisco last month, reality slowly creeps in. Although I'm working on another post full of pictures, I decided to throw this in here just for a dose of reality.

The North Dakota Home School Association puts out an e-newsletter called the Eclectic. Just in case you, like us, don't know what that means I'll share what we learned when Andrew looked up the word this afternoon on his I-pod. He has insisted on the exact meaning of words for as long as I can remember and we, being naturally lazy, let him continue on the tradition while we improve our vocabulary at his expenditure of time. The word, Eclectic, then, means mixing and matching good parts from several different sources of ideas.

In this case, we learned a bit about upcoming home school events; a good resource with which to study our government which is free online; and what parentalrights.org has been up to since I decided to tune out the world. I was delighted in each case.

Please take a moment to watch the trailer to the new movie that this fine organization just put out here at my time expenditure. :) Then join us in getting out the word about the need for an amendment to our constitution to protect parents rights to raise their children in the fashion that they deem best for the child. If you do watch this, you'll see that good old FREE America needs to be protected from those who have their eyes on destroying our country.

Anyway, did you know that Governor Hoven has declared the second week in November as the week of the family? Also, did you know that Parental Rights.org is planning a big event on November 20th to launch their new movie to the world? I didn't know this either until today, so don't feel all alone.

Here's the deal, if we send them $15 they'll send us a copy of the video. All we have to do is agree to watch it on November 20th (with the rest of the country) AND try to get as many others to watch it with us as possible. So, how would you all like to come over to our place to watch the movie on November 20th? UM, maybe I should throw in an RSVP here as we really do have a small living room. :)

Please pray about this and let the Lord lead you as He will.

One other bit of news is that I made Thanksgiving arrangements with my sister-in-law, LV, today. You may recall that my brother/her husband Russell and she were here last Summer for a short visit. Well, LV's mom just died and she's all bummed about no family to spend Thanksgiving with so I invited them here for the day.

LV told me this morning, "Russell was absolutely glowing when he got off of the phone with you last week. He told me, 'Dawn just invited us for Thanksgiving Day. Can you believe that?" WOW--I never dreamed that I mattered to him at all, let alone making his day with my invitation. I guess it just goes to show that one never can tell when one will find an open heart. Let's keep loving then, folks, for there certainly are many lonely hearts out there in the big, busy world.

Here's to love then!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dawn

LOVE

Robert and I pulled out of organized religion to keep the Sabbath, as outlined in Scripture, 14 years ago. We have studied faithfully what the Bible says about different truths on our day of rest and worship. Yahweh (God the Father) has shown us many wonderful things about Himself when we take the time to be still with Him on the day that He hallowed at creation.

When we started our home school 17 years ago, we began memorizing the 10 Commandments. The children were little, so we just kept it simple, and did the short version that is printed everywhere. However, as the children grew, I wanted them to memorize the Commandments as they are written in Exodus 20. We read these passages over and over until, little bit by little bit, these words came from memory and I knew that we had indeed put them into our heart.

Exodus 20:8 - 11 reads like this and I quote from memory:

REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY.

SIX DAYS SHALT THOU LABOR AND DO ALL THY WORK,

BUT THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE LORD THY GOD:

IN IT THOU SHALT NOT DO ANY WORK,

THOU, NOR THEY SON, NOR THY DAUGHTER,

THY MANSERVANT, NOR THY MAID SERVANT,

NOR THY CATTLE,

NOR THY STRANGER THAT IS WITHIN THY GATES:

FOR IN SIX DAYS THE LORD MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH,

THE SEA AND ALL THAT IN THEM IS,

AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY:

WHEREFORE THE LORD BLESSED THE SABBATH DAY,

AND HALLOWED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The SEVENTH day IS the Sabbath of the Lord thy God! It is a holy day--a day to rest from our labors and just trust in Him to have all of the answers to the problems of the approaching week. It is also a time to rejoice in how HE has saved our neck in the past week! I love, on the Sabbath, to recall ALL the times that He gave me the wisdom that I needed to deal with a difficult situation; how HE gave me the strength to do all of the work that He lined up for me; and how HE led me beside still waters even in the midst of all the controversy I faced that week. WOW--GOD IS SO AWESOME THAT HE DESERVES A DAY TO BE HONORED IN THIS SPECIAL WAY!!!

Actually, though this post appears to be about the Sabbath, that was not my original intention. You see, the point that I was trying to make here is that we can get all wrapped up in proving to everyone else that we have done our homework and we KNOW that we're right and they're wrong. But this very process of arguing over who is "Right" and who is "Wrong" must certainly grieve the heart of the God of all love. Certainly we don't impress HIM when we cut some one's throat just to prove to them that we were RIGHT!!!!!!!!

I'm thinking now of one fine, young man who I'm sure will never read this. How grand it is to "Study to show ourselves approved unto God," but what is the point of all of the studying? When the heart's goal is to study, just for the point of having head knowledge, I must argue that God is not greatly impressed.

Certainly, I'd much rather that young men be studying the Word, and about the Word, than out dating a different girl each week. However when one gains knowledge and imparts it with the world, simply for the reason of proving oneself smarter or better or more learned than everyone else, then I must say that this is pharasitical type thinking.

Robert and I keep coming, over and over, to the fact that GOD IS LOVE. When I was getting confirmed in the Methodist church in Eureka, SD almost 4 decades ago, I volunteered to recite

1 Corinthians 13 at the service. I'm sure that most of you know that that chapter in the Bible is called the, "Love Chapter." My heart burned within me that day with the desire to get people to see that LOVE is what matters more than anything else in the whole wide world. I still recall people crying later, saying how it had touched their hearts.

Although I can't recite the whole thing right this minute (although we worked on it in school last year), it IS buried deep inside my brain. I will recite the first 3 verses from it to help to make my point as these are God's words and not my own.

THOUGH I SPEAK WITH THE TONGUES OF MEN AND OF ANGELS,

AND HAVE NOT CHARITY (LOVE),

I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS

OR A TINKLING CYMBAL.

AND THOUGH, I HAVE THE GIFT OF PROPHECY,

AND UNDERSTAND ALL MYSTERIES,

AND ALL KNOWLEDGE,

AND THOUGH I HAVE FAITH THAT

I COULD REMOVE MOUNTAINS,

AND HAVE NOT CHARITY (LOVE)

I AM NOTHING!

AND THOUGH I BESTOW ALL MY GOODS

TO FEED THE POOR,

AND THOUGH I GIVE MY BODY TO BE BURNED,

AND HAVE NOT CHARITY (LOVE)

IT PROFITETH ME NOTHING!!!!!!!!!

There really is nothing more to say. ALL of our efforts to impress God with words of wisdom to fellow human beings means absolutely nothing to God IF THOSE WORDS ARE NOT MOTIVATED BY LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are simply sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal if we write, or talk, or move, or do anything at all, without love being the motivation for what we do.

What IS love? Well, I urge you to study the rest of 1 Corinthians 13 to find out if you're not really clear on this. Better yet, commit it to memory. I'm always amazed when I hear people comment on how much Scripture they have memorized. They'll say all kinds of grand passages about God, and HIS love, but very few can recite the love chapter. WHY? Well, it's my hunch because being loving really IS a hard thing to do. In fact it's absolutely impossible for us to do in our flesh, being we're filled with sin.

It's not natural for us to suffer long; be kind; envy not; vaunt not OURSELVES; not be puffed up; seek not our own; be not easily provoked; be not puffed up, think no evil, bear all things; believe all things; hope all things; and ENDURE all things. THAT'S A LOT OF SELF-SACRIFICING, ISN'T IT?

Yeah well, if we want to be like God is, then we will let His Holy Spirit work in us to BE love to everyone that we meet. It really doesn't matter what I want, or what I may desire, what matters is what is best for the other person!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S WHAT LOVE DOES!!!!

Over and over Robert keeps saying to me, "What the Bible boils down to, in my opinion, is that if I want to be like God, THEN I WILL LOVE OTHERS!!" With all of my heart, I believe that he is RIGHT!!! Oh, to have a heart of love for the world as my Heavenly Father has--THAT IS MY DESIRE.

To love, then, to love. When there is love, 2 people can sit down and discuss every issue in the world and agree to disagree and walk away being fed by the knowledge that the other person still respects them even though they are not seeing things the same way.

Better yet (as I believe that their IS truth in ALL areas) wouldn't it be grand if someone who has done a lot of studying in an area would quietly and LOVINGLY explain to others what they have learned with those who are ready to hear the truth in that area? Then the second person can lovingly and quietly explain a truth to the first person that they have been studying. In this way, the church would grow and prosper and be in good health. AHHHH--that all of Christendom would love each other as Christ loved the church and GAVE HIMSELF FOR IT!

May you all have a love-filled Sabbath tomorrow!

Dawn

A tribute to Josephine

Well, I found my dear, 2 years young friend Josephine dead in the barn this morning! ): She was pretty bad last night when we got home from Bismarck, but I didn't give up hope. I gave her a shot of penicillin and did cortices for her again. Every chores since she accidentally got into the barn lime (which we use to spread on the barn floors before a new batch of calves), I've been giving her the milk from the other goats--about 2 quarts. There's not much extra production, as the kids are taking most of it now, but she got every drop. Last night she didn't want it, though, so my heart sank. I also gave her mineral oil each chores with the hopes that the poison would pass in the stool.

I guess it was her time to go even if I didn't think it was. My friend, Kimberly, had a goat live to age 17 so I never gave it a thought that I'd have to give her up so soon. Here's a picture of her from March of this year when she gave birth to twins. I had named the buckling, George for George Eschobar who spoke at the home school convention. Later I had named the doeling, Mary, to go with the George in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE! We lost George when he was a few weeks old, so Mary is all that is left of this trio. She's the spotted one and is a bit wild so I can't imagine that she'll ever fill the empty spot in my heart that Joe has left.

I know there are probably lots of people who think that I'm a nut for grieving after Joe like this, but this friend greeted me twice a day when I went out to milk the goats. While I milked, Josephine would come up beside me and gently nuzzle her head up against my shoulder. She was always beside me when I was anywhere in the goat barn or pen. Joe never cared that I was wearing old, dirty barn clothes. She never cared that my hair was a wreck or I was hurting too much to lean over and hug her. She just looked up into my face and let me scratch her soft neck as she moved her head side to side. Honest to God, I miss her a million times more than I miss my mother!!!!!!!!! Who will eat oats out of my hand now or push her face up against mine while I milk the others? Oh Joe, why did you leave me when you had so much life ahead of you?

In 2002 when my favorite horse, Gabriel, died of West Nile disease I told Robert that I would never love another horse and I meant it. I haven't even wanted to touch a horse since that grueling week-long ordeal. Of course there haven't been any around to touch as the children sold their horse, Ben, shortly after to get the money to buy a trampoline. Now I feel the same way. All other goats are just animals--Joe was my friend who would listen to everything I told her and never judge me or gossip about what I said behind my back. She always loved being close to me even last night when she was in horrible pain. I could tell that my presence was a comfort to her even hours before her death. One other time I loved a goat like I loved Joe, so maybe I will again, but it's going to be a long time off.

Sometimes I actually think that loving isn't worth it. Sometimes I love a person and they turn their back on me just when I need them the most. Sometimes I love an animal and they die. Sometimes I say to Robert, "I give up on love." That's when he takes me in his arms and says, "Don't you dare. Your loving heart keeps my world going, girl." So I try again for I know that there are hurting people or animals in the world who need a little compassion now and then. How could I ever withhold that from them? Still, I will guard my heart now and cherish the memory of this wonderful friend whom I had named Josephine March Bornemann 2 years ago in the Spring when I bottle-fed her because her mama wouldn't take her.



PS. The death toll now is 3, with 2 almost recovered, and one still iffy. Please pray for Cora's doe, Lily. It's not certain yet if she'll pull through it or not.

PPS. I spent an hour this morning cleaning up the 2 bags of barn lime which they had strewn all over the bags of kelp and cattle mineral. I put it in pails but it was too heavy for me to move up to the storage room in the barn, so I covered the pails. I guess I should have done that about 3 days ago. ): Somebody stronger than me will have to lug them up the hill to the barn but at least it is out of their reach if they should happen to break out again.