The nephew was boasting how he cowardly had gotten back at his maternal uncle’s wife just prior to approaching the security bag checking at the airport. His mind had been preoccupied from the first day he had arrived. He felt relief he ‘finally’ got it out of his chest after four days!

He shouted at his uncle from the distance “I don’t know how you have lived with her all these years!”

His uncle seventy years of age and his wife sixty four got up early to drive the nephew to the airport, now they waved at him not knowing what to do with his bitter comment. The fifty four years of age nephew felt good about the opportunity to verbally revenge for what she had said to him the first day he had arrived. She had spent a little over a week with his sister few weeks prior. The niece had let them talk. In contrast to his sister the brother liked to be listened to. Uncle’s wife found a fraction of time daring to mention his sister, saying “Katie is nicer than you!”

“From that moment” he said to his sister, “I didn’t want to leave without getting back at her.” His sister told him “Maybe because I let her get things out of her chest about her husband’s side during the first decade of her marriage? Though none of her complains were new to me.”

He admitted that he wasn’t going to do her that favor. Few times they had talked at the same time then he shushed her. That’s when she pointed at the contrast between him and his sister; he kept it as grudge.

Within that month sister and brother took turns to go and see their terminally ill maternal aunty. His sister went first when the aunty was released from hospital with couple weeks left to live, with a bag to drain the water from the liver tumor and IV at her arm, instructed not to eat till her last breath.

Their aunty was very optimistic, believed that her nephew would perform his first miracle just by being there physically, therefore hopeful if the tall and handsome nephew would come and visit her she was going to get walking around the neighborhood again. She expressed her confidence in him adding the rational that she didn’t trust her son and her niece were strong enough never mind miracle workers. Her hope stroked his ego enough to book the plane ticket. Though her son and niece were changing her diapers and taking shifts in staying awake to attend to her needs around the clock it didn’t count because she ‘believed in miracles’. Humble service of two average looking people whipping her rear end didn’t come close.

As I was hearing the story from all the individuals involved it confirmed what is included in the Bible that humans see with eyes and God with the heart. 1Samuel 16:7

And if the appearance and the lofty stature comes with boasting and self promotion, Isaiah 14:13-14, we prefer to go down the pit than rethink the belief.

The contrast of opinions then must’ve come as a shock to the nephew: his aunt valued his presence more than his sister’s service; his uncle the wife on the other hand complimented his sister. He anticipated bowing by all the relatives residing there. He couldn’t consider her blurting “Your sister is nicer.” water under bridge for the sake of his cousins, her daughters, and their children who were all over him, neither showing minimal respect towards his uncle being married to her over four decades. That’s how Haman (Book of Esther) decided to have a law to kill all Jews because Mordecai didn’t bow down or pay him homage (Esther 3:5). One person’s conviction made the cup from more than three quarters full look empty. If the position/license to kill is given to these individuals without paying consequences will slay many for one. Isaiah 14:20 ‘For your land you laid waste, your people you slayed.’

How easy are we to be deceived the fact that service is seen as weakness and at the same time expected but not valued especially by the ‘just average looking’ as pointed in Isaiah 53:2.

Nothing new under the Sun. Unless God interferes to give us discernment and pull us from deception judging with our physical senses will make us end up with the one ‘brought down to the far reaches of the pit’ Isaiah 14:15

What is the point I am making taking the time to write this? One is that the Bible has everything for us to sharpen out discernment to escape the trap of deception. Senses are good when coupled with the heart in order for us to discern the fruits.

And the second, it is God’s sovereignty that makes it possible for these individuals to boast about their ungratefulness and demand bowing from all or none. They are not pleased with remnant as God is. The demand is how they betray themselves for us to clearly see their heart. We are victims of deception only when we do not read the Bible-everything we need for discernment, growth and knowledge about humans and God is there.

She said “Is the people who push their beliefs to the government’s laws. A woman should have right to her body; if the child was conceived through incest or rape the woman can’t keep that child; every time she’ll look at that kid is going to be reminded of it.”

So many questions started to occupy my head. I wanted to ask her:

Are all the abortion cases conceived via rape and incest? Because the last time I arranged one it wasn’t.

Let’s be coward and stop the heartbeat of the innocent that “barged in”, showed up uninvited, because the heartbeat of the guilty must go on.

No, I think questions are better than statements.

You don’t think the abortion sears women’s conscience and perpetuate men’s irresponsibility?

When biology betrays us and we demand license to kill-eliminate the consequences-are we then going to drop the adjectives we call males-pigs, dogs, schmuck-for haphazardly dropping the seed of life among females? Are we imitating them out of envy or competing to catch up to them in killing?

Who ‘assured’ us that consent to unprotected sex is not consent to pregnancy?

Would we ‘harvest‘ zombies with will of their own from easily rejecting all these living DNAs, heartbeats, and smashed limbs and sculls?

How long would we get away with murder?

 But even more important,

isn’t it wiser to follow the money, so that we can find out who is gaining from giving us ‘the right to our body autonomy’?

Actually I want to know ‘Do you mean Christians, when you say “pushing their belief”? Isn’t the Sixth Commandment “Thou shall not murder”, a moral imperative, no matter where the location of the heartbeat.

Then a lecture started to build up, in my head. (It is so hard to fight the natural tendency of quick to speak and slow to listen.)

I wished I could explain:

FYI, true Christians don’t just push their beliefs. They ‘push’ good judgment’, since when the promoting of good judgment has become detrimental to a society?

Christians are not made of the cream of the crop, but for whatever mysterious reason we were convicted for being lost willfully or unbeknown to us. There is Good News though even for scumbags like us #1Corinthians6v11. There’s forgiveness, and adoption. The Good News of the Gospel of Christ is not religion is Divine Solution. It is hope for us that have commited premeditated murder of the innocent.

To quote A.W. Tozer “Humans are not damned, they are lost.”

Christians sound like a broken record to the world, just like a responsible parent sounds, you being one of them, when repeatedly warning and advising your children. We Christians are impartial; the whole world is ours to warn, because we’ve been there and have ‘missed many marks’ and fell short of the glory of God. #Romans3v23

We know the Way, the One Who NEVER ‘missed the mark’ as result He boldly claimed “I am the way, the truth and the life.” #John14v6 and since truth offends I am convinced that does not brainwash anyone but sets us free.

We Christians dare to warn the world from the works of the one who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. #John10v10 in the abortion case deceives us by pointing “the right to our body autonomy”, but not reminding the duty to be accountable for our careless actions and decisions we make using our body.

Christians live for the future that’s why we gather the courage to speak the truth in the present. Since, at least, the 4th century Christians have had to fight against the practice of abandoning unwanted children. The hasty decision to stop heartbeats that cannot defend him/herself points to the fact that we are lost looking for “freedom” even if it comes in stained conscience.

Hearing the truth is a human right. If a doctor hides from the patient the diagnosis, he/she/them/they loses his/her/their license for negligence, doing harm by omission-letting the patients perish physically allowing disease to spread. Not sharing knowledge, about results in the future, is uncaring, unethical.

Fear of being misunderstood or mistreated does not let Christians off the hook when others are deprived of the opportunity to hear the truth. Bible is loud and clear of the responsibility to be whistle blower. Ezekiel 3:18, 33:2-9, Colossians 1:28

Christians are not instructed to pick and choose who deserves to know the truth. Just like lighthouses were a sign of land/life for the explorers and for the pirate ships so we are not given the liberty to assume which image bearer deserves to perish and which one to be regenerated.

Bridges too are built to allow the passing from one side to another. The upwards Bridge died and resurrected to make available the passing, of all who believe, from gravity of ignorance to freedom that comes with knowing the Source of all wisdom and Christ Jesus whom He sent. #John17v3

God has no favorites #Colossians3v25, #1Peter1v17 therefore suppressing the truth and pretending that abortion is not murder won’t serve us. At the same time He Who created us in His Own Image #Genesis1v27 wants no one to perish. #2Peter3v9

I hear often women saying for various things they go through “How come no one tells us these things?” Or “I wish someone had told me this when I was younger. Or I wish I knew what I know now; I would’ve prevented so many unnecessary headaches/struggles.” Even articles are written titled “What your— won’t tell you….” We want to be warned, we appreciate sharing of wisdom-‘the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment.’ That’s what Christians are doing by being anti abortion.

Should a blind person that has gotten the sight watch another blind fall into a ditch because might get offended if is warned of falling?

Christians warn because the blood of the lost and of the innocent is in their hands if they keep silent out of fear of persecution. Even Pilate the Roman Governor who handed people for crucifixions left, right and center knew to wash his hands prior to delivering the innocent Christ Jesus to the soldiers to be crucified. #Matthew27v24

My coworker’s voice brought me back to the workplace “How unfair life is for women! A man can get laid everyday with different women, get them all pregnant and not a worry in the world!” 

I told her, how unfair is that some women would do anything to have a biological child and so many others haphazardly throw theirs in the trash. But most of all abortion is a heavy burden on woman’s conscience.

“Oh, you saw it in the news?!” she exclaimed, “The Garbage Collectors found a baby in the trash can!”

That’s the reason I have no TV. Heart broken I googled… and read

May 3, 2022

“Police sources told Global News the human remains are those of a very small person — possibly a child or an infant.”

WOW, I said, in my head, there we have the results of seared conscience. God’s image bearers by default are discarded like a fast-food container, malignant tumor or cancerous tissue when the accountability is considered denying of human rights.

I proceeded to tell her about an acquaintance of mine that adopted a baby boy, now 18, who was conceived as result of rape. Jennifer, a nurse practitioner, was single when she met the boy’s mother and arranged to adopt her baby. When the boy was six they moved from a cosmopolitan, big, city to a small island so she could take care of her elderly mother. The boy grew up quite independent going to all his extra curriculum classes and musical organ lessons by himself since his adopted mother worked shift work to support them.

My coworker replied “Yea but that’s not the case for everyone.”

I wanted to say, ‘Yea but whoever has lived the consequences of:

willful or unbeknown blindness,

deception,

exploring curiosities that bring irreversible damage,

denial and suppression of truth

has to warn others; it is not “pushing their beliefs” it is basic human moral responsibility.

I’ve come to think ideals are not a religion but our destination. What brought this thought? For eight months now I have been trying to pass the Jurisprudence exam and thank God there’s no limit of times one can write it, I still have chances.

The passing grade is 100%! My profession’ s Regulatory Body has set the standard high. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48 However, if I dare and ask ‘Are you espousing Christian standards?’ most likely the answer will be ‘We are not a religious institute.’

We tend to choose what to borrow from God’s moral laws and commandments. If we don’t choose few of them but others do then we see those others as ‘espousing views that are homophobic, islamophobic and transphobic,” Phobias are fears and could spring from a trauma or imaginable traumas, arachnophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, fear of heights fear of needles, so on and so forth.

While some 100% expectations are called phobic views or devisive and religious other ones are mandatory to get a licence to work on humans.

I understand that lack of compassion towards tendencies of humanity is a thing to be considered especially in health field but accusing and condemning people for promoting the order of life proved to have been working so far is another. To be impartial of minorities and the phobic majority we have to ask ‘Why and how did we get this phobias in the 1st place?’

Homophobic-“The AIDS crisis, as we generally think of it, began in the 1980s. First as a mysterious illness primarily infecting gay men in urban areas in the United States. Before the disease’s first mention in 1982 in the New York Times, people had been dying of AIDS for at least a decade, though probably not much longer. In Africa, HIV–the virus that causes AIDS–had jumped from chimpanzees to humans sometime early in the 20th century. While it’s true that most emerging diseases affecting humans come from wildlife, it’s often human behavior that is to blame for the spillover. But the good news is: If we’re the ones causing the problem, we’re the ones who can stop it” EcoHealth  Alliance www.ecohealthalliance.org/2017/12/world-aids-day

Any meat eater knows very well that there wouldn’t be filet mignon, or lamb chops if the meat farmers attempt stubbornly to mate same sex animals. If we demand that the rest of the nature behaves in the order of life then shouldn’t we also recognise our human tendencies as out of order and harmony of life? The facts got to surrender to the truth of life; it is the maturity we ought to reach.

Let’s see another phobia “Islamophobia term may be defined sociologically as the fear that the Western society has against Muslims”. Even though the roots of that pathology, which especially escalated after 11^th of September 2001, terminologically came out in late 80s, that fear and conflict has deep roots in the history of the West.” History of Islamophobia and Anti-Islamism – The Pen Magazine

And when we do not do our research of origins of phobias then we discriminate and accuse others, considering the ideals/maturity as “Legitimizing hate and discrimination has seriously dangerous consequences for people.” Partiality helps noone’s progress.

Yes, we are supposed to be like Christ who judged no flesh, but at the same time He told the truth in a way equivalent to our expression “Don’t be sorry, don’t do it again.”

John 8:10 “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.”

And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

John 5:14 “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 

I relate to the discomfort of ‘what if’. There are all kinds of ‘hunger’ or identity confusion and curiosities that self, influenced by darkness and boredom, plays to us and with us. IF we bury the ‘What IFs’ inside us we turn into victims thinking we have been deprived. To me the gender confusion is not different than having the itch I had for ‘adventure’-aimless traveling. I was over thirty years old when I could ‘scratch my itch’-had the financial freedom that would feed that aspect of my selfishness. Needless to say I ended up careless with my finances by hiking mountains in Anglophone islands. Yes, it was important everything in my travells had to be convenient and harmonious. As result in my mid fifties my siblings took pity on their middle age homeless, eldest sister. I felt embarrassed for my immaturity and lack of sensibility towards my future. Late but I learned the hard way that ‘being true to myself’ or ‘empting my bucket list’ I ended up burden on others. It is ok to try to find out the ‘what ifs’, however, when we see ourselves in the bottomless pit we do no favor denying the consequences of our ignorance pointing to the fact that we got to turn from our old ways, which is the dreaded single word ‘repent’.

Mark 2:17 “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners,^]to repentance.” Luke 5:31-32, Matthew 9:12-13

Luke19:10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Stuck in self we are lost, but humans do not see us as lost see us as burden or crazy, mentally sick or shameful to be around. Is no one’s duty to accept us when we want to change backwards. We are ‘out of order’ when we are obsessed with self.

Just like my mother was not proud of my hasty decisions in life so we have to admit that probably no human being wishes upon a star for his/her children to grow to have same sex attraction, or that their bundle of joy to grow with intentions to hire a plane to hit high-rise World Trade buildings, or be suicide bombers, neither spending their youth consumed how to reverse the gender that was or were born. The knowing of what is harmonious and orderly is built in us as God’s image bearers, though it does not always win the day that’s why we demand that others make our chaos more convenient to live in by pointing the finger at their phobic attitude.

Also we need to accept the fact that because ‘loving others as our self’ does not come naturally to us that’s the reason God made it a law Leviticus 19:18
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

Mark12:31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Hence most of the professions are self-regulated which means have Regulatory Bodies to customize rules and regulations ‘“Self-regulated” means that the profession governs itself, has the responsibility and legal authority to act in the best interests of the public.’ explains the college that regulates the profession I am writing the exam to get registered with.

If we practiced love for others, and love is action and that’s why needs to be practiced then there’s never a dull moment in our life to be bored and confused about any kind of identity, we will always ‘have a bigger fish to fry’. The ‘horns’ of deception are the fruitless urges we feel which make us selfish, shortsighted, impulsive, confused of belonging. We end up belonging in the dump-the purposeless bottomless pit of immature adults. Once I had more than I needed I said “I am going to live for me; I owe it to myself!” Since when, I owed it to myself to be careless and purposeless with my life? Just because I spent sleepless nights studying to get my college diploma, it counts as sacrifice that justifies that kind of thinking and living?

I personally see nature as our mirror; if we pay attention it tells us what we got to do in order to avoid ending up in hell. I lived in an island for 12 years and experienced hurricanes where the winds broke main brunches of avocadoes trees, palm trees and loquats got derooted. January-March was the season for the avocadoes in the yard of the place I was rented, to be picked. When the hurricanes hit us in September-October the avocadoes thrown in the ground ended up in the dump, because were not eatable, no matter how long one left them in a brown bag expected to ripe it didn’t work.

I know avocados are not made in the image and likeness of God but were made for the God Image Bearers. Genesis 1:29-30 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; ³⁰ and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. Nature doesn’t have the choice to ripe or not to ripe? We do.

The question then becomes IF I was a fruit or vegetable would it be better to be picked at the peak of ripeness to nourish a human and hopefully the human will plant the seed and multiply the benefit nourishing others too in the future, or be eaten by bacteria? To serve or retire without serving? Truly,truly,I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24

But let’s look at our most basic standards and expectations towards others especially when we pay even a dime?

• Do we return the plate in the restaurant if we find a hair or dead fly or any particle that is not part of the dish we ordered? (Could it be then that our willful wrongs, stubbornness-“That’s who I am” “I’s born this way” “Accept me for who I am.”-are to God just like that unwanted particles in the food we return and demand to be replaced without charge, or else we’ll write a horrible review?)
• Does any of us go to the grocery store to pick up the blemished, bruised fruits and vegetables or food in torn bag/damaged container. (How would we feel if the grocery store worker would call our standards discrimination for not filling our shopping cart with rotten or the unripe produce and broken, damaged bags and containers?) After all the stores’ marketing standards display the ripe and appropriately packaged; that’s why they have returning policies to meet buyers’ standards and needs in order to attract them.
• If the doctor misdiagnoses us and we find out about it or our loved one dies of neglect we sue him/her or them. We expect them to know and care, in other words to be seasoned and ripe in their profession.
• If a bridge or building collapses investigations start to make the engineer or architect accountable for any miscalculations during design and building of them.

If we then,who are work in progress, have established our standards and expectations of ethics and morals how much more God also won’t reverse to bringing chaos out of order. God created us He knows we cannot live on pickled food alone it is too acidic. Beside the fully ripe produce we also need every word that comes from the mouth of God, to be fully ripe ourselves.

Even if we are too arrogant to accept the truth that only certain unripe veggetables can be picked to be eaten pickled which therefore give us LIMITED OPTIONS: PEPPERS, CABBAGE, ONIONS, BEETS, RADISHES, OLIVES, CUCUMBERS, EGPLANTS (YES WHERE I’S BORN AND RAISED THEY PICKLE SMALL EGPLANTS AND GREEN TOMATOES)

DID I FORGET ANY?

So, ‘Human rights activists’ When we are more afraid of hurting people with the truth we legitimize hopelessness and irreversible damage. Legitimizing reverse order of life is willfull distruction of society, shortsightedness.

“Truth brings the right people together” Bronnie Ware

Can we afford to reject become a new creation? We are the only species that are given the choice to ripe or not to ripe. It is ironic that we were also told to subdue the earth. What was God thinking?

When He realized we were going to blame Him “A loving God does not send His children in hell!”

!” Why do you accuse me of doing wrong?
    You are the ones who have rebelled,”
    says the Lord. Jeremiah 2:29

One way or another we are slaves and we do sacrifice. None of us are looking for pickled humans. In sports too once an athlete breaks the record it becomes the new record. And no athlete was announced winner nor broke a record at the starting point.

If we like to eat fully ripe produce then we might as well become so ourselves. We were born to be born again. John3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

January 2021.While assisting a teenage girl with a scrapbook-like project I overheard her mother who was talking on the phone, addressing someone in her conversation ‘the log’ which usually is called any married man with priorities in right order, who does not conform to cultural AKA man-made ‘rules’. Men who have reached 1Corinthians 13: 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.

Hearing the word ‘the log’ I raised my head and looked at her daughter; she replied to my look “My uncle doesn’t mention or shows to his daughter the gifts my mom sends her.”

From July-January deceiving and dividing had worked. ‘The log’ is her only sibling.

I felt like a watchman to notify people whose mouth piece they are being. Unbeknown to us some times we invite deception with our tendencies of self-centeredness. Deception, like virus or cancer that needs human body to live, demands spread through human mind; it seers conscience and hardens the heart. I wanted to question God by adapting Moses words from Deuteronomy 29:4 ‘Why haven’t You given this sister a heart to perceive, eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day?’

I had two entries in my journal after Messenger conversations they contained clues.

The most recent was dated July 2020 and was titled ‘Who is in the details?’

He had attended a funeral and called to tell me how impressed he was that in the midst of COVID-19, the fare well of the man who had passed on, a truck driver, looked more like one of an influential person or politician. He compared it with his sister’s funeral where they couldn’t see the end of the cars’ tail, but that funeral took place 2012, there were no pandemic restrictions then. He was mostly touched by how the 20years of age son, of the man being buried, spoke about his father.

After the funeral he went straight to his in-laws who live in the same city, lashing out at them how bad of a parent their son is, ‘the log’.

He passionately told me; “I went to my in-laws and made Mike (his father in-law) not even a river can wash him.”

It gave me the impression he had premeditated about it after hearing the speech of the young man. His conscience must’ve convicted him as a father and probably as a son too.

“I told Mike, call your son, now!

He called.

I asked his 3years old girl Did you like what your aunty sent you?

Surprised she said ““What did my aunty send me?””

I brought it to you yesterday in the gift bag. You remember?

My brother in-law, asked his wife to bring it. The little one’s face lit and asked her mother to help her wear it running to the mirror.”

(One wishes the advance of technology didn’t need to reach up to the video talking) J

After the short and ‘to the point’ video call his father in-law heard. “In her age your daughter’s children knew the names and talked on Skype with my friends and second cousins back home. I made sure they knew them. Your grand-daughter does not know even her one aunty she has. The gift was a way for them to bring to her attention that she has an aunty that loves her but that’s the type of parent your son is!”

His father in-law told him “No one compares to you, no one can do what you do, and we all know that.” It was just what he wanted to hear. Temporarily might have made him feel better as a parent putting down or diminish other parents’ priorities.

I interrupted him saying that his brother in-law is focusing on more immediate needs of his children, or he doesn’t want his children to associate relatives with the gift giving. I do not agree trashing someone’s parenting for prioritizing different than you did. Plus they both are working from home and have to manage an infant and a three year old. Introducing the extended family and relatives should not be the most important thing to a parent.

He cut me off by saying “You are brain washed!”

I stood my ground that even if it wasn’t pandemic there are more pressing things, preparing their food, reading to them, interacting with them, even more now that cannot take them out to the play ground.

He hung up on me.

Five months later, hearing his wife call her brother ‘the log’, and his daughter “explaining” to me why her mother did so, it was clear who were brainwashed and it became alarming to me. No one had used their brain to say ‘why in the world was so important to him to ‘trace’ what happened with the gift; what even triggered the ‘curiosity’ about it?

Am I asking for too much from people? Should a sister just automatically throw her brother under the bus for not making her gift priority? Is that supposed to be a family deal breaker?

How can a sister so easily be blinded about her only brother for such a trivial thing?

An Instagram post I had recently stumbled on from Samuel Say @slowtowrite made sense why the grudge lasted five months “If you are easily offended, you are easily controlled.” I would add easily deceived too.  

I looked for the other entry, spring 2018 ‘Be the Surfer Not the Wave Tossed and Driven with the Wind.’ dots started to connect.

What had appeared as sarcasm two years ago had progressed to condemning.

I’ve had an issue with the intention behind sarcasm all my life; is humorous, playful or belittling.

My discernment had concluded that the darkness must be interested in infecting the younger generation.

The conversation had been about few pieces of bedroom furniture to be moved from his house to his brother’s house. Being meticulous himself he loaded them safe to the vehicle, but, because his relationship with his parents is sour he didn’t want to be the one taking the task to the end.

To ‘save’ him the awkwardness of facing his parents, his sister’s husband agreed to take over. During the transporting one of the nightstands fell from the trolley and came apart, had to be thrown right then and there. Knowing that bedroom set had sentimental value, his sister’s husband was disappointed at himself and heartbroken for his in-laws.

After everyone, well most of them, had already comforted him saying, they were glad that he was not injured, he received a text from his niece by marriage “Woe to you” or can be taken also equivalent to “Shame on you!”

After learning that one of the nightstands did not make it to the next destination the accuser’s volume between her father’ s ears must’ve gotten louder than the inner ‘dialogue’ prevented him from going to his brother’s house in order to avoid being face-face with his parents. And it seems to me to quiet that voice he meditates in ways of spilling the misery.

I do not know why he calls to proudly tell me-‘the brain washed one’-what measurements he takes when his conscience convicts him.

He thought was humorous and ‘wittily’ to tell his son first, to send the text “Moses, Woe to you!” His son firmly said ‘No’.

The fact that his son said ‘No’ ought to have served as red traffic light for the father to STOP.

Then he asked his daughter to send it.

“Spell it!” she excitedly ‘ordered’ her father, since the saying was to be written on his language. Maybe she wanted to restore her relationship with her father. Few months ago she had said ‘NO’ in an occasion that wouldn’t have hurt her to say ‘Yes’. Full of pride he had asked his daughter to play the piano for his aunty with whom he was talking on Skype.

I looked for an entry in my journal which had come after the conversation with his daughter titled ‘Where Did the Spatters, Go?’ You know what I mean the ones who spat on Christ?

After his daughter deflated his pride he quickly ended the Skype conversation with his aunty and spat on his daughter, then in rage he grabbed her from her hair, dragged and twisted around, her body making circles. Her father spitting her in the face shocked his daughter more than the painful pulling from the hair and twirling around.

Writing the text “Woe to you Moses!” for which she eagerly said ‘yes’ to, was akin to stepping on someone’s fresh wound. She probably was more concern to make up for the inappropriate and unnecessary ‘NO!’ she had said few months ago.

Would her dad take responsibility for it if his daughter ended up making it a habit building a pattern of saying ‘yes’ to mind games, I bet every father wish their girls build their courage to say ‘no’?

Domino effects can start with sending a sarcastic text for which her brother said ‘NO’ to.

A dilemma to do or not to do the right thing is overpowered by self-righteousness or ego convinces him not to.

He then gets tossed around ending up premeditating misery needs company.

Not wanting to humble himself and face his parents he ended up feeling guilty for the broken piece of furniture. I saw a pattern

In the case of the nightstand’ s ‘funeral’ he premeditated how to put down the person who came to his ‘rescue’ his sister’s husband, throwing to him the shame.

In retrospect he must’ve realized even hiding behind the moving furniture would have silenced the mocking voice of the accuser.

We have evolved packaging mockery as “sense of humor” in order to smoothly share some of it in form of sarcasm.

How would he otherwise recognize a ‘brainwashed’ person?

Hmm maybe because he buys sets of mascara to his daughter each time he physically abuses her? When his daughter was asked “Why do you accept the mascara? Why don’t you tell him how you feel?”

She replied “Yea that’s how he makes up; he takes me on driving practice or buys me things. Oh well it does mess my head up when he treats me poorly but then I have mascara!”

When Hailey’s hands got frozen, fingers bent in strange positions, during a nervous breakdown few days after her father had hit her for the 3^rd time. Panicked she yelled asking her mother to come urgently and see what was happening to her. Haley’s mother inexperienced asked for help her husband’s relatives having been through same sort issues few years ago.

To their warning, “Be careful how you treat her, prior to ending up irreversible!”

He replied “Nothing is wrong with her she just wants attention.”

Mental conditions turned physical were what Jesus healed. They are called miracles because that’s what it takes to reverse damages that come as result of not listening to our conscience when we are convicted by it for doing unto others what we wouldn’t want it be done unto us.

In that funeral home, on July 10^th, 2020 he might’ve honestly asked ‘Would my children’s speech be as heartfelt and genuine as this young man’s about the loss of his father?’

“In the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie” reads the last part of Ecclesiastes 11:3

May I suggest that if someone comes and makes logs out of cutting the fallen tree, ‘the logs’ will be much more useful.

We who know we are blood washed might be seen as brainwashed by the ones who hopelessly assume that few more works, or amount of mascaras, and the conscience will be cleansed, and the accuser will be silenced. The works kind of thinking is attempt to mocking God’s gift, also keeps us wondering “why bad things happen to ‘good’ people?”

We can either be blood washed by the One Whom was mocked and spat for humbling Himself before His Father declaring “It is Finished!” or we’ll be brainwashed, ‘Woe unto us!’ for assuming that our self-centered works and gift giving will please God.

I know we got to hold people accountable for their beliefs and words but the truth is that ‘good people’ too are prone to deception and that’s why they fall ‘victims’ for lack of discernment whose mouth piece they become.

One main reason, I have come to believe, that ‘bad things happen to good people’ is that the mirror of our conscience are the ‘neighbors’ we are supposed to love like ourselves as result it becomes a challenge to obey that commandment.

What triggered all these? One might wonder.

I spent the afternoon of the first day of the 2021 patiently listening to a nice lady in mid seventies.

Since I came out of the closet about ‘reading the Bible’ people either are sarcastic about it or engage in conversations to tell me stories how they found out that God is good. So on January 1^st 2021 started “I don’t blame God any longer for taking my daughter at the age of forty four.”

She proceeded to explain why. “I read an article. A mother had been crying for years asking God ““Why did you take my son from me?”” Then one day God replied showing her how her son would have ended up if God did not take him at the time He did. The grieving mother then told God ““Ok, I am sorry for blaming you all these years.””

The lady, I was listening to, concluded “Then I thought ‘who knows how much more abuse Bella would have endured at her husband’s and his family’s hands?” She said that was glad she stumbled upon that post for the ‘comfort had brought but most importantly the clarity and wisdom she had gained’.

I felt responsible to stop the ‘infection’, this deception had spread. Anything that assists us to point the finger at others’ behavior it is infection of the mind. What makes it even more contagious is when we start believing that God ‘reaches’ grieving hearts’ with the intention to remove the blame from Himself giving us options, so to speak, to choose between blaming Him V/S glorfying Him, for the tragedy. It sounds He is saying ‘you really wanted your loved one  alive? I actually reduced you future heartache by taking them!’

All we have to do is read the Book of Job from chapter38 to the end, and see what God thinks of our victim states.

I recalled that her daughter spent most of her days off with her mother. If there were no medical appointments and no shopping for her mother then she had both parents over at her house. When we, her daughter’s friends, would comment in admiration ‘It must be rewarding to have such a generous and caring daughter’, we heard “Her husband and his family are milking the cow, why only them?”

The ‘clarity’ she had gained left me speechless and concerned. I was in her house and had just eaten in her dining table with my friends, her grown children. I faced the fact that I had no way of finding out how the grieving mother in the article had treated her son when he was alive. Probably the reader who stood in front of me had felt guilty for what her daughter had been through physically, psychologically, emotionally, as child and as an adult, in her mother’s hands. Recalling how obedient my late friend Bella was never left room for correction of any sort in all stages of her growth, I suspected her mother’s conscience and memory might’ve been busy bringing all that to the surface. Taking responsibility for unnecessarily tormenting an innocent child can drive us to look for dumping some of the conviction and where better than other image bearers.

Although she had taken some solace in ‘agreeing’ with the new found concept ‘God had saved her daughter from days of further abuse’, she still questioned His justice system, “I read biographies of Christian saints and it bothers me to learn they were beheaded; I cannot reconcile with God allowing that.”, shaking her left hand in the air in form of protest.

The more she talked the heavier the weight of powerlessness became over me. I wanted to tell her to read Matthew 14, the story of why and what for John the Baptist was beheaded. A woman’s little ‘I’ got offended by the truth and was waiting for an opportunity to show the truth teller, the price. I dared interrupting the one sided conversation using an earthly analogy that saints fulfill the law of Christ, bailing us from spiritual debt just like we bail someone from earthly jail by paying the required fine. If the sacrifice of Christ hasn’t awakened us maybe the beheading of saints will crack a little window in the hardness of our heart.

Of all I said she must’ve heard only the word ‘jail’. I say this because she jumped to a story when she was in her early twenties she had saved someone from full sentence jail. “I was the only witness that didn’t give in to the threats. As result of me telling the truth he served only three months because the false witnesses had testified at the days I couldn’t make it. I was pregnant at the time and twice on the day I had to swear I was rushed to the hospital with risk of miscarriage. “

She got the 9^th commandment down! You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Can that save us when we violate the 10^th?

After the brief story of courage, despite the threats she had adhered to the truth with steadfastness saving her colleague who had been falsely accused, a dead neighbor surfaced in her memory. Though I too was raised in the same neighborhood, as observant as I am, I had missed things while people were alive. I learned from the nice lady that first day of the New Year about the neighbor who had died five or more years ago “She was a controlling mother. She also assumed that anyone her sons hang out with had intentions to take advantage of them, even the mothers of her grandchildren. She wasn’t shy to tell her daughters in-law to go to work and not take advantage of her sons. If relatives on her side visited she commanded her sons to stop being hospitable.”

Since we “were” in the neighborhood she informed me about another neighbor’s stinginess. This one is still alive but his wife had died. “He accused his daughter that she purposely picked the most expensive flowers for her mother’s funeral just so to spend his money. And soon after that they became estranged.”

Prior to sitting around the table, I overheard her complaining to her youngest daughter about her son not making any attempt to find a job but he is charging his parents rent.

It is true that since March her son hasn’t been able to work because of COVID-19 lock downs and his position doesn’t offer the opportunity to work from home. However knowing how patient he has been with them and at their beck and call for fifteen years, it shocked me that none of it counts because he’s been asking back a fraction for ten months.

Though I felt honored she trusted me enough to talk about dead and alive it became food for thought. Does she feel the same way her late neighbor felt about the people that surrounded her sons? Is there any chance my friends’ mother has been commiserating silently with the other neighbor who got bitter about the price of the first and last flowers he ‘brought’ to his late wife? I couldn’t ignore the pattern. Then just to confirm my speculations she proceeded to tell me “North American taxes system is built to take advantage of working people.” This last one gave me an window of opportunity to explain why ‘I guess, that’s how the governments can cover the expenses of the surgical procedures you and your husband have had even though you haven’t worked a day in this country.’

She got up from her seat, went to the kitchen and returned handing me a plastic bag and told me “These are for you. But wait, my son will drive you.”

            For a week I indulged in delicious homemade vegetable pies and at the same time truly concerned what do I do with the gift of discernment. Is her eternity my responsibility? Am I a watchman failing to alert this lady of the danger of deception? How can I introduce the finished work of Jesus to a Christian by culture? Can I tell people who decide to vent when they have few hours with me ‘You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:5

I am not Christ Jesus though; I need Him myself.

I admitted that it is a rare thing that she has the courage to stand for the truth even in midst of threats, just like saints for whose end of mortal life she felt hurt about.

I realize from observations, any form of self analyzing and reflecting brings some sort of suffering. Every aspect of self exposing hurts pride or ‘dignity’ brings torment, emotionally and psychologically. Processing the truth that we are as bad as the next person we judge suggests need for change and reorganizing the life we have identified with. It is a task that might bring benefits in the long run but not money or peace in the present. Anything that shakes our earthly ‘citizenship’ we avoid grieving what we have to lose.

 Ideals require obedience and for most of us focused in the here and now, the ideals and obedience sound madness, nonsense but at the same time rejecting the sacrifice of the One Who stood obedient to the end leaves us open to become a mouthpiece for deception. It is true we’ll look like losers, people mock us if we dare and attempt to courageously withstand the fear and pressure of ridicule but we’ll be set free to never wonder in victim state or vacillating between pride and shame.

When the ideals offend us then we easily become prone to craftiness and deception. Mind games of deception makes us focus on the ‘I’, its goal though is to sabotage God’s order for the big picture and what better way to achieve that goal of sabotage than directing us to focus on preserving the ‘Me, myself and I’. Unless things grow there’s no order in the big picture which we, our children and loved ones live. Therefore it makes perfect sense why Bible stresses obedience.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

We were successful at coming up with all sizes of mirrors to see our face and physical body because we cannot otherwise know what we look like. However, we point the finger at the mirrors that God made in His own image. As long as we do that ‘the bad things will happen to good people’ who easily notice and therefore judge on others the expressions of disobedience most of the time shamefully hidden in our own sub conscience.

#mirrorsofourconscience #John8 #Ephesians6 #doesthetruthoffendyou #reflect #courageofselfanalyze #Godimagebearersaremirrorsofeachothers #disobedienceisselfdeception #Mark12 #Leviticus19:18 #loveyourneighborasyourself #whybaddthingshappentogoodpeople #Matthew7 #taketheplankoutofyourowneye #thereisnodignityinhypocrisy #truthmakesusfeelnaked #thereisnoshameintruth #truthsavesusfromdeception #askfordiscernment #beatruthteller 

 

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