AI (Wombo) Hearts and Roses Design by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Many years ago, I heard someone say, “We can complain that our rose bush has thorns, or we can rejoice that our thorn bush has roses.” I didn’t know at the time that it was a lesson in the art of reframing similar to making lemonade out of life’s lemons. Somehow, I’ve always thought in these terms. Maybe it was a natural development of survival, or maybe I learned it from watching the movie Pollyanna when I was young.
Thorn bushes, to me, are the basic troubles and trials in this life that are part of living in a fallen world. For Adam and Eve, the thorns and thistles were outside the garden and not part of their life until after the fall. Then, all kinds of troubles they were not supposed to deal with became life companions. Death and sickness are probably some of the worst thorns they dealt with and that we still deal with in today’s world.
But we also have roses. God didn’t abandon humanity to endure only the thorns of life’s troubles, but He gave us an abundance of things like hope, joy, peace, and love to bloom right alongside the thorns. Sickness and wounds carry the hope of healing; broken relationships carry the hope of restoration; and death carries the hope of eternal life with The Lord and with those we loved in this life. But it’s not always easy to focus on the hope, no matter how wonderful the blooms. Sometimes, the thorns just hurt a little too much.
Today, I talked to a brother in Christ who has been diagnosed with cancer. I so love this brother, and his wife is like a big sister for me, and that thorn really stuck deep. My “fix-it” personality wants to have all the answers yesterday, so that neither of these 2 friends will have to endure the pain of this dreaded disease. But I’m not a doctor or scientist who can fix this, so I turned to the biggest rose on my branch of thorns: Our Creator and Father, and the ability to bring Him our thorns in prayer. I prayed before we ever hung up the phone, and I felt God’s Presence with all of us as we called out to Him with this heavy need.
Now, it’s almost bedtime, and my heart is still reaching out to The God of Healing and Comfort. I seek His peace and strength for my friends, and for myself and my husband. We’ve been through it ourselves when my husband got his diagnosis, and I’m thankful for the dialysis that is now keeping him alive while we wait to see if God has other miracles planned for us. We got a big one when the growth beyond the kidney that showed up on imaging was no longer there when the doctor went in for surgery. When he removed the kidney, all the cancer went with it, and he was shocked. He told me he looked and looked but could find no more cancer. I was so overwhelmed just knowing my husband survived that I didn’t even realize the answer to prayer and to the doctor’s statement before surgery that he’d like to see a miracle. But I know now. I know I serve a God who can and will do miracles, and I’m still looking for more of them to show up on my thorn bush. I welcome prayers from readers as well.
Fractalius Fan and Roses by Crystal A Murray–See the original in my photo stream at Flickr by clicking on the image.
Today, we have another short reading of only seven verses. This one, from Genesis 26:23 through Genesis 26:29 is all about the blessings of Isaac and the promises God made to him. In verse 24, Yahveh appears to Isaac and lets him know he has nothing to fear because He is the God of his father, and that means He is the God of him. Yahveh reminds Isaac of the blessings He has in store for his future descendants because of the promises He made to Abraham. And at this point, Isaac builds an altar and worships God.
I don’t remember if Scripture tells us that Isaac ever built an altar to God before, and whether it does or not, I don’t know if he did. In trying to look back over the last few weeks, I don’t think he did, so I’m thinking this is beginning of Isaac’s personal relationship with his Creator. But here is what I find truly interesting about this event. When Isaac dealt with Abimelech before, maybe even expecting the king to defend him as he had done his father, Abimelech suggested he leave town. Now, since Isaac has talked with God, Abimelech and the commander of his army have shown up on Isaac’s doorstep to make sure things are right between them.
In verse 28, after Isaac asks them why they would show up after now after sending his family away (and not defending him against the lying herdsmen who were stealing the wells Isaac dug), Abimelech tells him how they want to make sure that Isaac will not treat them badly because they may have sent him away, but they did so in peace. I can just hear them tripping over their own tongues trying to make sure that Isaac will treat them as friends and not as enemies. And in verse 29, they give away the reason they are so concerned about how he will treat them. They say, “You are now the blessed of the Lord.”
Huh, so when they just thought he was the son of one favored by God, they didn’t defend him, and they sent him away. Their blessings toward him were simply to do him no harm. Oh, but now that they know God is in Isaac’s fan club just like He was in Abraham’s fan club, they want to make sure they’re on the right side of the blessed man.
It’s like people who think they’re special because they get the autograph of someone who is famous to others, as if they’ll be sort of famous by osmosis. I think these guys were thinking that if they befriended someone who was blessed by God that they would get blessed by osmosis. And the funny thing is, Abimelech did the same thing to Abraham, right down to asking for the same protection and bringing up how good they treated him. But if folks want to hang around Christians and treat them well to keep themselves out of trouble, at least that means they can see that we are blessed by Him and walking in His presence. After all, God’s word says He will bless a city for the righteous that live there, so I guess it is in people’s’ best interest to get near those who are blessed by God. But I think it’s even better if we can be the blessed and say, “Guess who is in my fan club? Yep, it’s God Almighty!”
And with that I will close with my report on NaNo that I have reached 12,613 words for day #5. And I’m hoping God is in my reading fan club and will help me turn this one into something because I’m liking what my characters are doing now. Oh, and pardon the use of my “punny” picture for this post. I just liked the idea of showing off my fractalized fan to go with the title. 🙂
Crystal is, like her name, multi-faceted. She can even write about herself in third person and only feel a little awkward about it. 🙂 She loves to write; she loves kaleidoscopes, fractals, and all things colorful; she loves her husband, her family, and her feline furkids; and mostly she loves Yahveh Almighty, her Creator. She believes her creative mind is in her DNA from Him, and she believes He sees His creations as she sees the images inside a kaleidoscope–all different yet all beautiful and most beautiful when light (His light) shines through them.
Crystal Writes A Blog 
When God is in Your Fan Club
Fractalius Fan and Roses by Crystal A Murray–See the original in my photo stream at Flickr by clicking on the image.
Today, we have another short reading of only seven verses. This one, from Genesis 26:23 through Genesis 26:29 is all about the blessings of Isaac and the promises God made to him. In verse 24, Yahveh appears to Isaac and lets him know he has nothing to fear because He is the God of his father, and that means He is the God of him. Yahveh reminds Isaac of the blessings He has in store for his future descendants because of the promises He made to Abraham. And at this point, Isaac builds an altar and worships God.
I don’t remember if Scripture tells us that Isaac ever built an altar to God before, and whether it does or not, I don’t know if he did. In trying to look back over the last few weeks, I don’t think he did, so I’m thinking this is beginning of Isaac’s personal relationship with his Creator. But here is what I find truly interesting about this event. When Isaac dealt with Abimelech before, maybe even expecting the king to defend him as he had done his father, Abimelech suggested he leave town. Now, since Isaac has talked with God, Abimelech and the commander of his army have shown up on Isaac’s doorstep to make sure things are right between them.
In verse 28, after Isaac asks them why they would show up after now after sending his family away (and not defending him against the lying herdsmen who were stealing the wells Isaac dug), Abimelech tells him how they want to make sure that Isaac will not treat them badly because they may have sent him away, but they did so in peace. I can just hear them tripping over their own tongues trying to make sure that Isaac will treat them as friends and not as enemies. And in verse 29, they give away the reason they are so concerned about how he will treat them. They say, “You are now the blessed of the Lord.”
Huh, so when they just thought he was the son of one favored by God, they didn’t defend him, and they sent him away. Their blessings toward him were simply to do him no harm. Oh, but now that they know God is in Isaac’s fan club just like He was in Abraham’s fan club, they want to make sure they’re on the right side of the blessed man.
It’s like people who think they’re special because they get the autograph of someone who is famous to others, as if they’ll be sort of famous by osmosis. I think these guys were thinking that if they befriended someone who was blessed by God that they would get blessed by osmosis. And the funny thing is, Abimelech did the same thing to Abraham, right down to asking for the same protection and bringing up how good they treated him. But if folks want to hang around Christians and treat them well to keep themselves out of trouble, at least that means they can see that we are blessed by Him and walking in His presence. After all, God’s word says He will bless a city for the righteous that live there, so I guess it is in people’s’ best interest to get near those who are blessed by God. But I think it’s even better if we can be the blessed and say, “Guess who is in my fan club? Yep, it’s God Almighty!”
And with that I will close with my report on NaNo that I have reached 12,613 words for day #5. And I’m hoping God is in my reading fan club and will help me turn this one into something because I’m liking what my characters are doing now. Oh, and pardon the use of my “punny” picture for this post. I just liked the idea of showing off my fractalized fan to go with the title. 🙂
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November 5, 2013 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Abimelech, Abraham, Adonai, Almighty, altar, Bible, Bible Gateway, Bible reading, Bible study, blessed, blessing, Complete Jewish Bible, Creator, crystalwriter, descendants, fan, fan club, fractalius, future, Genesis, Genesis 26, God, Holy Bible, hope, Isaac, Lord, Old Covenant, Old Testament, Parashah, Portions, promise, relationship, roses, Scripture, The Complete Jewish Bible, Torah, Torah commentary, Torah Portions, Torah Reading, Word, Word of God, Word of the Lord, www.biblegateway.com, Yahveh, Yahweh | Leave a comment