Peace

FMF October Challenge 2017 – Day 1

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Ooooops. I accidentally linked my Day 1 page to the main site for the challenge. To find my Home Page and the links to all 31 posts, click HERE. Thanks.

 

Today’s prompt is “Worship.”

SMILING WHALE - WHITE ON AQUAWorship: it’s the door to peace, power, and pleasures for evermore. Jonah found worship to be his most powerful help in getting back into God’s grace. When he’d deliberately disobeyed the Lord and ended up in the belly of a big fish at the bottom of the sea, he came to his senses and realized how foolish he’d been. When he looked around, everything he saw told him there was no hope for rescue– or any kind of future. But he knew that there was still a God who wanted to save him. So he turned his attention away from his circumstances and away from his own disobedience. Instead, he focused on his God and began worshiping Him. Shortly thereafter, he was cast out of the fish onto dry land, and he got a second chance to live the successful life God has always wanted for him.

Habakkuk found that worship was his most power friend when he looked all around and found that the trees weren’t bearing fruit, the flock weren’t bearing offspring, and everything looked like there was no hope for the land of Israel. But, knowing that salvation from all that looked hopeless lay in His God – and that what God’s Word said was more real and more reliable than what he saw in the natural – He worshiped God and called for the rest of the nation to do the same – knowing that as they worshiped, they were releasing God’s hand to bring life and productiveness back into their situation.

And talk about power in worship: let’s not forget Paul and Silas, in the depths of a Philistine prison, who decided that nothing in their circumstances could outweigh the loveliness and the faithfulness of their God. As they chose to worship Him, rather than bemoan their current, temporary physical situation, the power of God moved with such force that it broke up the earth and the building where they were being held captive. And not only were they set free – but the jailer and his family were liberated from their hell-bound lives into a blessed relationship with God for eternity.

Eternity is what it’s really all about. God wants us to have blessed lives while we’re on this earth, but He’s even more concerned that we have the blessing of living and creating with Him for all of eternity – enjoying the priceless, indescribable pleasures that we find in His presence. Psalm 16:11 tells us, “ … in Thy presence is fullness of joy. At Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Worship heads us in the right direction for eternity. But while we’re here on the earth preparing for that eternity, as we worship Him, God says (Psalm 22:3) that He will literally inhabit our praises. And were He is, we’ll experience peace, power, and pleasures forevermore.

 

 

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Christmas Bells

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

On Christmas Day, 1863, in the midst of a war that was ripping apart the very country his own forefathers had sacrificed to create – a war that was stretching his own personal faith in God to its very limit – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned words to a new poem. This Christmas, in the face of what looks like a world being ripped apart by that same kind of evil, may the solace and renewed faith that Longfellow found and shared be rekindled in your heart as well through his words:

 

CHRISTMAS BELLS - GOSPELGIFS
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day,
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet, the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th’unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

soldiers-and-copter-for-blog
And in despair I bowed my head:
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said.
‘For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.’

DANCING MUSICAL NOTES WITH STRIPES
Then peeled the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.’”

 

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The Patriot Minute 11/10/13 — 60 seconds of meditating, re-evaluating, & re-affirming

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

If the United States would be a world leader for peace, then we must be a leader for righteousness first. So say many of our great leaders, who learned first-hand that righteousness begets peace, and peace then produces more righteousness.

But they did not discover this truth on their own. God Himself made it clear in His Word when He said, “ … He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, … yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
— Heb.12:10-11.

He also admonishes us with these words: “The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
— James 3:18.

And His ultimate declaration has been proven throughout history, not only in our own nation, but in a number of others as well:  “Righteousness exalts a nation.”
— Prov. 14:34.

SINGLE ROSE

“The Bible teaches us that there is no foundation for enduring peace on earth except in righteousness; that it is our duty to suffer for that cause if need be; that we are bound to fight for it if we have the power; and that if God gives us the victory, we must use it for the perpetuation of righteous peace.”
— Henry Van Dyke

“May it be among the dispensations of His providence to bless our beloved country with honors and with length of days. May her ways be ways of pleasantness and all her paths be peace!”
— Martin Van Buren

“The United States fully accepts the profound truth that our own progress, prosperity, and peace are interlocked with the progress, prosperity, and peace of all humanity.”
— Herbert Hoover

 

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September in the Rain

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

I’m in the mood to listen to the rain. The gentle sound of falling rain has always been soothing to me, and, since this is the month that I think of as the beginning of fall, I acquaint it with autumn rain. So I’m borrowing this lovely video to share with you, and I’ll throw in a happy little rain poem of my own for good measure.

I AM A RAINDROP

I am a raindrop
I’m looking for a place to plop.
I’m falling quickly and cannot stop.

I don’t know where I’d like to be,
But I def’nitely don’t want to land in the sea.

You see, if I were to land in the sea,
It would be so anti-climactic for me.

I would lose my personal identity;
Even I would no longer recognize me.

No, I must find someplace solid instead.
Perhaps on a daisy in a flower bed.

Or a plant so parched it’s almost dead,
Or the page of a book that’s being read.

I must decide as fast as I can.
I’m falling quickly toward some folks on the sand.

So many are out there just getting a tan.
Hello there, little bald-headed man.

His head sure was tempting, but then a breeze blew
And drove me off course; what am I to do?

Oh, I see it! I see it! My target’s in view!
Get ready! Get ready! I’m landing on you!
Plop!

© 2011 Sandra Conner
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NaPoWriMo – Day 13 – Along The River

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

NAPO 2013 BUTTON

The prompt for Day 13 was to take a walk and incorporate the elements of that walk into a poem.

Exif JPEGALONG THE RIVER

The sun is playing hide and seek with clouds
Along the river.
The clouds are gray, but friendly, soft, and free
Along the river.

I move unhampered by the flirting breeze
Along the river,
Breathing deeply of the moistened earth
Along the river.

Quiet now invades my mind and soul
Along the river.
I’m letting go of tumbling, troubled thoughts
Along the river.

My past recedes; my future quiet rests
Along the river,
And water speaks to waters deep within,
Along the river.

I sit and contemplate historic days
Along the river:
The generations served by this same stream
Along the river.

And sense that I belong to something great
Along the river:
A part of something bigger than myself
Along the river.

And far beyond my power to understand,
Along the river,
An elemental knowing I am known —
And I am loved —
By the Creator of the river.

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Here’s the link to join the fun: http://www.napowrimo.net/