Sickness, Healing & Yahweh's Goodness!

Well, I felt really good on Monday. I was up very early and had energy all day long. There was still a little bit of a cough, but nothing bad. Tuesday, however, was a different story. I dragged myself out of bed around 10:30 and did not feel well. I was coughing, so I ended up taking a Claritin. The Zygal the doc gave me did not work, but I think the Claritin may have...so far as the cough anyway. It can be hard to tell.

Today, I am feeling better again...not 100%, but better than yesterday. I hope this will eventually go away for good. I hate the thought of being allergic to where I live. :P

I have been getting more into God's Word again, lately. That is a good thing. I always do much better, all the way around, when I am spending time in it...and with Him. Yahweh has been good to me. He has helped me to survive many things and has done much healing in my life. I look forward to His doing more!

I am so very blessed. This land is beautiful. I have a good marriage. We are all fairly healthy. We have the freedom in this country to worship Yahweh openly...for now.

From our little RV on the hillside to you in your home, I hope you are able to recognize your blessings and freedom!

Beautiful Music!

When I can, I love to start my day listening to beautiful music. I have some podcasts that I listen to that I absolutely love. They are called "Praise Until Dawn". I have even saved some of them and edited the titles to reflect what kind of music is on the different segments of the podcast. It is all worship music...and quite a few of my favorite worshippers and music styles. So, I can pick and choose what I want/need to listen to.

If I am going to work out...well, what I call a "workout" which is, I admit, pretty pitiful...I will listen to some of the faster paced stuff. I love to dance to music...but an 11' x 7 1/2' living space filled with counters, sofa, table, etc. just does not leave a whole lot of room! **grin**

Sometimes I am in the mood for the softer more melodic stuff. That is a lot of what is played. There is quite a variety, but it is all music that is worshipful and lifts my soul and spirit to the Lord above. They also sometimes mix in beautiful instrumentals, which I also very much enjoy.

As a singer at heart, one thing I really like, too, is that I can hear all the words in the songs. I like to experience a full expression within the music. If there are words...I want to HEAR them! I want to know what my heart is agreeing to in the listening. That is very important for me. Not all songs are really biblically correct. So, if the music is not mixed properly (this goes for church services, too), it really bothers me.

Praise Until Dawn (PUD) plays at Praise Broadcasting Network (PBN). It is the two hour "quiet time" of Pat and Claudia Rutherford...that time when they quiet their souls and spirits before the Lord. They start off with some music and then slide into about 25 minutes of welcoming people to join them while they banter back and forth and read emails on the air. Pat usually shares a bit of his take on what is going on in the world at large and with life on this planet in general as believers. Throughout his "commentary" he shares what he believes our "Instruction Manual" (what he calls the Bible) is saying about how we should respond to the things going on in this life. It is very rare that I disagree with him...so rare in fact that I could not even tell where we differ.

That is another thing I like about Pat and Claudia...they are who they are...no pretensions. They are just down to earth people with foibles like the rest of us. They don't pretend to have "arrived". They just love you the way you are and are more than willing to simply agree to disagree about something. There is no pressure to believe the way they do about anything. They have encouraged me a lot as we have built up an email relationship. I hope to some day meet them on this side of the veil...but if not, I know I will meet them on the other side.

I so love it when Claudia reads the emails they get from listeners. In them, people from all over the world share how PUD and PBN has blessed them so much. They also share how Yahweh/God has moved in their lives. It is very encouraging.

After that there is a brief episode of "Unshackled", followed by one and half hours of beautiful music, with another "Unshackled" in there later on. One of the best things about PUD is the way Pat and Claudia will share some verses that God has put on their heart. Pat is always praying inside and asking the Holy Spirit to show him what to play next. It is the only live segment on PBN and it is very much a working of the Holy Spirit through the selecting of the music throughout.

The live segment comes on at 5PM EST M-F and is then repeated three times during the following 24 hours. On the weekends, they play repeats of two of the PUD's from that same week. If they are not able to go live, for some reason, they insert a PUD from a previous broadcast. They also simulcast on KNTV, which has a link on their home page. During that 5PM live segment you can actually see them in the studio via either KNTV or the webcam they have set up. That is...if Pat remembers to flip the switch over for KNTV. LOL

The webcam shows the studio 24/7, whether they are live or not. KNTV, however, has a real treat. There is a support team who volunteer their time to help Pat and Claudia out. You can see this on the website. On the home page there is a slide show that plays along with scriptures that keep changing. On KNTV, Elisa has taken those pictures and created absolutely beautiful moving slide shows with scriptures right on the pictures. You have to see it to believe it. It is incredibly beautiful!

There are other things on the site, including a prayer forum where listeners can read and post prayer requests. It is a wonderful ministry. There is a "store", a blog, etc.

So, you can't tell that I love these people and their team and what they are doing, can you? I have the link to PBN in the links section of the column on the left. But I will put it here, too, to make it easy for anyone who wants to check them out...which I highly encourage you to do. There is music playing on PBN in between the PUD segments, along with a teaching by Zola Levitt once a day. All the music is hand picked by Pat and Claudia. It is music that really touches them and they work hard to try and keep it up and running 24/7. In between the PUD segments you can even see what song is playing and who is doing it.

Here is the link. I would love to see more people join the PBN "family" for that is what we really are..."family"! That is how they see the listeners and that is how I, as a listener, see them.

http://www.pbnradio.com/index.html

Birds of a Feather & Maranatha 70's!

This morning my son told me to come very slowly to the window. In the tree outside, which I believe is a cedar, there was a small flock of birds. I don't recall ever seeing them before. They were fat little birds with medium gray on their wings, very dark heads and an orangish colored breast and stomach. Just behind the orange beneath their tails they have white. The tails are also gray.

This is the tree where the bird feeder is, but I think they are too big to be able to use the kind we have. They were pecking at seeds of some kind in the tree. As they ate little dark specks were hitting the snow below the tree.

They were accompanied by little birds with dark and white striping. We also saw what appeared to be a tiny woodpecker...black and white with a bit of red on his head. He was tapping away at a branch in a nearby bush, but we could not hear anything, even when we opened the window a tiny bit. We do have woodpeckers around. In the summer we have heard them.

There is still snow on the ground and the trees still have some ice on the branches. No icicles. It is more of a layer of ice that just coats them. Yet, the birds were able to get to those seeds in the tree, even with the ice.

Hmmm...I wonder...do we choose to keep picking at God's Word for that sweet honey for the spirit, even when it seems like everything in life is layering "ice" upon it? Sometimes, when hard things in life hit, it is harder to get into the Word. It almost seems as if there is this layer over it that makes it hard to see...difficult to understand. Yet, if we act like those birds and keep at it...we, too, will be rewarded with the nuggets of spiritual nourishment that are there.

These birds were together...a small flock. They led one another from tree to tree, from place to place. Do we gather together with one another? Do we fellowship and allow ourselves to be led by one another to His Word and to His presence? Sometimes, especially when we are weak and unable to find our way on our own, we need the rest of the flock to help show the way to the next place...to the next bit of nourishment on the journey. So, do we allow that to happen? Or are we stubborn, independent buggers?

Well, I am sitting here listening to the February 15th PUD (Praise Until Dawn) podcast from PBN. This particular one seems to be the worship music from the 70's...Maranatha style...the stuff I heard in that time when I was really growing into my relationship with the Lord in a much deeper way. Boy does it take me back! I LOVE this music as it lifts my spirit and makes my heart soar.

It is now time to get off here and do some bible reading with my son. While we read, I am going to start the very slow filling of the bathtub. Because of the small water heater, I have to let it fill VERY slowly so that the water stays hot. It takes about 20 minutes or so to get the tub filled. No sudden baths around here. You have to preplan them. But I will share more about that in another post sometime.

I have been sharing my rambling thoughts here this morning. I sure hope they make some sense! :)

Oh...and one more thought about the birds and music. At one point, my son said that there was a bird outside that kept opening its mouth as the music was playing. He said that it almost seemed as if the bird was singing with it! I hope that your heart is singing to Him today!