FIRST LOVE - Do you remember?

Do any of you remember your first love?  I do.  I was 8 years old, he was my neighbor across the street who gave me a gold ring he got from a mint candy package.  He said we were married.  I was so excited and told my family at the dinner table just to get a lecture from my Dad telling me I was NOT married and that I was too young to even think about things like that.  LOL!  Unforgettable proud moments!

Who was yours?  While you reminisce, LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

VALENTINE - FOR THE LOVE OF LOVE

Valentines Day is a day of love.  But what if you don't have anyone in the same species but love something in a different species?  Why not? Love knows no bounds, it has no specificity.  Love is love.  It's all about the feeling of joy you feel when you have that someone, human or not, right there beside you.  Love is a generality, not to say that love for an inanimate object like money, cars, etc. is the same as fulfilling love.  Love is a raw emotion.  It is something undeniable.  I love the people in my life, my family, some friends.  I have three dogs.  I love them too!  God loves us all and He deserves our love back.  He surrounds us with people who would allow us to exercise that raw emotion so that we could also understand His love.  But there's a difference.  Our love is mostly conditional whether we admit it or not, but God's love is pure and unconditional.  So in light of the upcoming day of Love, let's go ahead and LOVE ONE ANOTHER, just as much as God loves us.

Till my next rant...

SECURITY

After his resurrection, and when Jesus prepared to leave the earth, he told His apostles that He will always be with them.  He gave us all the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity.  He represents our heavenly Father, whom we have never seen, and was just a “voice” or a burning bush to the champions of the old testament.  Jesus is the same God who was sent to us in actual flesh form, an actual vision and an actual tangible being who roamed this earth so our faith does not have to be completely blind as long as we believed, His Son.  The third is the Holy Spirit, who is a gift given to us by Jesus through the sacrifice of His blood.   The Holy Spirit is the God who lives inside each and every one of us.  He is our inner voice, the one who tells us to do the will of God in our lives.  He is the one who trains us to become the champions that we are, the One who leads us to an eternal existence with God (all three).  He is the one who is, when you give to a charitable cause, that warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing you were able to be a blessing to someone.  He is the one who strengthens and brings comfort to your heart when someone you love has left you behind and alone in this world.  He is the one that makes you think about apologizing to someone you may have hurt.  He may be sometimes called your conscience, your integrity, or just that little spark in you that reinforces that there is more to life than the world we live in.  He is hope, strength, faith, and LOVE.

The Holy Spirit is an unsung hero but he is inside each and every last one of us.  Sometimes we suppress Him because of the part of us that is too dialed into the flesh.  The Holy Spirit is our direct link to God through prayer.  Sometimes when we refuse to pray is because of our stubbornness to admit that we must live by the will of God through the Holy Spirit and not by the desires of the flesh.

In Romans 8:11, the Holy Spirit energizes you, gives you power to do the will of God when the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak, when you yield to the Holy Spirit of God he will do that.

In Romans 8:26 The Holy Spirit helps us through our weaknesses.  We should not deny our weaknesses.  It’s not like God doesn’t know what they are.  The first reason we should do it is because it is a FACT.  It is also an asset.  You may deny that and say it’s a liability.  But it is not.  It is an asset.  In 2 Corinthians 12:9 says that God’s strength is sufficient.  Our problems many times is not that we’re weak.  It is because we are not weak enough.  We have never surrendered to God and said, “I can’t!”  But when we finally come to the end of our strength and we appropriate God’s strength then we will understand how not only will He activate your will but animate your body.  God’s plan is to deliver us from self-sufficiency and cast ourselves upon his sufficiency so He makes us perpetually weak that we might be perpetually strong.

The double meaning of the word HELP means “to take hold of” and it also means “instead of”.  The way the Holy Spirit helps us is “together with” and “instead of.”  When you are praying in the Holy Spirit, who is praying, you or the Holy Spirit?  The answer is, You and the Holy Spirit of God in you.  The Holy Spirit of God is praying instead of you but He is praying together with you.  You CANNOT do it without Him, and He WILL not do it without you.  What a partnership and a privilege it is to pray with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit of God wants to think through our minds, He wants to speak through our lips, He wants to weep through our eyes and groan through our spirit. It is the Holy Spirit in the human spirit, together with, and instead of.  – Pastor Adrian Rogers

LOVE ONE ANOTHER...

PRAYER OF SALVATION

Jesus,

I know I’m a sinner, and my sin deserves judgment.  But You died to pay the penalty for my sin.  So, I repent of my sins now, Lord.  I ask You to forgive me and make me a new person.  Thank You for saving me, Jesus, and help  me live for You from now on.  I pray in Your name.  Amen.

NEW ART TODAY - GEARING TOWARDS VALENTINES DAY

Love!  That is the theme of my art from now until Valentine's Day.  I'm in the process of finishing my special valentine art but I got stumped today so I reverted back to my regular process just to "clean my palate" so to speak.  So this is what I came up with.  I hope you enjoy it.  I am also taking some short classes so I may not be posting often but you will still get at least two per week.  I love that you visit my blog and check out my art.  For that I am extremely grateful.  

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

RUN IN WITH ATHEISTS

PROFESSOR:  You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?

STUDENT:  Yes, Sir.

PROFESSOR:  So you believe in God?

STUDENT:  Yes.

PROFESSOR: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him.  Most of us would attempt to help other who are ill.  But God didn’t.  How is this God good then? Hmm?

STUDENT was silent 

PROFESSOR: You can’t answer, can you?  Let’s start again, young fella.  Is GOD good?

STUDENT:  Yes

PROFESSOR: Is satan good?

STUDENT:  No

PROFESSOR: Where does satan come from?

STUDENT:  From… God

PROFESSOR:  That’s right.  Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

STUDENT:  Yes

PROFESSOR:  Who created evil?

STUDENT didn’t answer.

PROFESSOR:  Evil is everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything correct?

STUDENT:  Yes.

PROFESSOR: So who created evil?

STUDENT didn’t answer.

PROFESSOR:  Is there sickness?  Immorality? Hatred? Uglinness?  All these terrible things exist in the world don’t they?

STUDENT:  Yes, sir.

PROFESSOR: So, who created them?

STUDENT had no answer.

PROFESSOR:  Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you.  Tell me son, have you ever seen God?

STUDENT:  No sir.

PROFESSOR:  Tell us if you have ever heard your God?

STUDENT:  No, sir.

PROFESSOR:  Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God?  Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?

STUDENT:   No sir.  I’m afraid I haven’t.

PROFESSOR:  Yet, you still believe in Him?

STUDENT:  Yes.

PROFESSOR:  According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your God doesn’t exist.  What do you say to that, son?

STUDENT:  Nothing.  I only have my faith.

PROFESSOR:  Yes, faith.  And that is the problem Science has.

STUDENT:  Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

PROFESSOR: Yes.

STUDENT:  And is there such a thing as cold?

PROFESSOR:  Yes.

STUDENT:  No, sir.  There isn’t

(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)

STUDENT:  Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat.  But we don’t have anything called cold.  We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that.  There is no such thing as cold.  Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat.  We cannot measure cold.  Heat is energy.  Cold is not the opposite of ehat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

STUDENT:  What about darkness, Professor, is there such a thing as darkness?

PROFESSOR:  Yes.  What is night if there isn’t darkness?

STUDENT:  You’re wrong again, sir.  Darkness is the absence of something.  You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light.  But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it?  In reality, darkness isn’t.  If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

PROFESSOR:  So what is the point you’re making young man?

STUDENT:  Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

PROFESSOR:  Flawed?  Can you explain how?

STUDENT:    Sir, you are working on the premise of duality.  You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure.  Sir Science can’t even explain a thought.  It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one.  To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life:  just the absence of it.  Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they have evolved from a monkey?

PROFESSOR:  If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

STUDENT:  Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

STUDENT:  Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this  process is an on-going endeavor.  Are you not teaching your opinion, sir?  Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was I uproar.)

STUDENT:  Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched it or smelt it?  No one appears to have done so.  So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir.  With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent.  The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

PROFESSOR:  I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

STUDENT:    That’s it sir… Exactly!  The link between man and God Is FAITH.  That is all that keeps things alive and moving.

A few months ago, I made a comment on The O’Reilly Factor via Twitter after his interview with the head of the atheist movement.  I didn’t realize that I would get peppered with so many hate replies from them some with sarcastic questions about why I would believe in something that came from nothing referring to my heavenly Father God. 

I knew that I should have ignored them and left them alone however, with my personality, coupled with my passion for God I couldn’t allow myself to do so.  Needless to say, I was up practically all night responding to their shenanigans but I made sure that every answer I gave them was geared towards love and not judgment for their own beliefs.  The reason why I took the time to stand my ground and defend God was because He impressed it in my heart the bible verse which states that if we as Christians stay inside our bubbles talking with fellow Christians about God, what is the challenge there since we are practically preaching to the choir instead of trying to gather more flock for Him.

Let me tell you that this was a very difficult feat.  It is so hard to try to encourage atheists to think with their hearts and not with their minds.  Yes, you are an intellectual but this is why you cannot grasp the concept of God is because you HAVE to think with your heart when it comes to faith.

Needless to say, difficult as it was, they gave up on me and I got the last word.  I found that they gather fellow atheists to chime in with them and two to three people would be attacking you.  Then when one person gets tired, he or she will be replaced by another so there would always be a gang of them negating you.

However, because I spoke love to them and attached bible verses, etc.  they left me alone.  I thought to myself, if there was only one person out of all those who were attacking me realizes that one does not have to be convinced of God’s reality rather just faith in their hearts, they would gain a better understanding of who He really is and maybe seek Him and his own salvation.  I would never know this but God will.

Until my next rant…. LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!!!

A SECRET VALENTINE SOON REVEALED (ongoing)

Not done yet but getting there!  Will keep you posted.  You can't rush art, LOL!!! LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

I am working on a valentine for someone very very special.  It is going to take awhile to finish but in time for valentines day!  Stay tuned!  Here is the first installment...

BOX OF EXPECTATIONS

Imagine if you were asked to NOT do the following for one day:

Lie (white and omission included)

Criticize (even internally)

Judge (privacy of your own thoughts included)

Gossip

Steal (stealing is stealing no matter how big or small)

Cheat (in all sense of the word)

Cuss or blaspheme

Sexually desire (with ANYONE other than a spouse)

Etc.

We are all born sinners because of Adam and Eve's fall from God's grace.  Small wonder some of us think that there is no need to try to fight sin and avoid it no matter what the consequence and go as far as to say well everyone sins and worse, compare and justify them based on the gravity of each sin.

BIG MISTAKE.  When we are born, we are born alone.  When we die, we will die alone.  When we see the face of God, our Maker, we will be judged individually, not as a family, a group, etc. and our sins will not be measured and compared with the next person.  Is it now starting to dawn on you that we are responsible for our own actions?  A good phrase comes to mind when my mother used to say, “If she jumped off a cliff would you jump too?”  It sounds cliche but it’s true. 

Some people look at Christians this way.  They think that just because someone is a professed Christian that they should walk around with a glowing halo on their head.  As a matter of fact, when one calls themselves a Christian, they are automatically held at a higher expectation of responsibility merely due to the label.  People are quick to judge when a Christian publicly falls from grace and associate that automatically as hypocrisy and therefore an excuse to shun their own chance of looking at their own relationship with God because, “it doesn’t work.”  I sympathize with such person when I hear this.  I wonder why anyone would try to hinge their own salvation to the failure of another.  It is, at the very least a surrender to the effortless or even sinful life they choose to live.

To be clear, I would not rather be labeled a Christian for any other reason except being born again in Christ.  I know that as a sinner, I could never stop doing any one of the above, not even for one day, because aside from the fact that I know God is so quick with His mercy will forgive me for just about ANYTHING, I would not want to be the reason for anyone to use an imperfect person like me to lose their chance with a relationship with God.  My testimony alone and my life purpose should be enough for someone to realize that everyday is a struggle to rebuke sin.  That is why God is so merciful, so quick to forgive because He understands and loves us enough to give us a chance to start over.  He has an unending supply of mulligans.  I do NOT by any means stop trying though.  It is harder to be good than bad, but the effort of being obedient to God and to his laws are always rewarded with blessings and grace.  Why would anyone choose to then miss out on that?

Until my next rant…. LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

Throwback Thursday - REVIVAL OF ANTIQUE BUTTONS

Those buttons on your grandma's coat?  Have you ever really observed the intricate designs of these types of buttons during the days where buttons adorned clothes so elegantly?  You don't see them anymore unless you pay big money for them.  I have a handful of them and decided to make a mold out of extra polymer clay I had on hand.  Green ones. So I made the molds and decided to make some with paper clay to adorn some of my artwork.  It's better to have them on hand now than realize you want to incorporate them but it takes too long so you do without!  Well, for Throwback Thursday, I challenge you to go through your grandma's closet and BORROW the buttons just to make a mold and reuse them over and over again later on!  Below you will see the end result. After I took them out of the oven, I painted them with black acrylic paint and after it dried I took a little paint on my finger and hit the high parts

Here are some of the ones I already have that I made molds from. I have more but these are a good start.

First, sprinkled a little baby powder and swirled the nooks and cranny with a stiff brush so that the clay would easily be released.

 Release and trim excess

Bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes each side, total 40 minutes.  Do not remove from the toaster oven until the oven cools down.

You can use these to incorporate in your art journals, collage work, etc. You can also drill and add embellishments for your projects!

AIRBRUSHING PRACTICE

Trying my hand at airbrushing.  I got some airbrush tools for Christmas and I am really liking the technique.  It's a challenge to control the paint but this one started as a scary girl (see the word Scary covered up on top?)  Well, I just tweaked it a little to make it look better and viola!  Turned out better than the orig.  Hoping to take control of the tool to make really good ones later!  Until then... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

LOVE GOD? FLAUNT IT!

God instructed me to say this to you today.  I flaunt my relationship with God because I love Him and He loves me.  In 2 Corinthians 5:13 If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.”  I therefore would rather be deemed out of my mind for God than in my right mind for you.  Isn't it more important to love, revere and obey God now than wait for His wrath to come?

It goes on 5:16; "so from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.  Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”   Because of Jesus’ time on earth and his reconciliation with us by his death and cleansing of our sins, we should no longer live for this world but for God who doesn’t count our sins against us, but has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

When you profess your love to someone, a relationship, a child, a parent, or any other loved one, you want to shout it on the rooftops because you feel that strong love for that person.  Why not do this for your love of God?  I did, am, and always will.

Until my next rant… LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!!! (because Jesus asked us to!)

A LITTLE LATE FOR THROWBACK THURSDAY...

But... better late than never!  This lady is an inspiration to me.  Growing up in the 60s, the age of Peace, Love not war, a great time for one's childhood, when women are real.  There were no physical enhancements, you just grow old gracefully and sophisticated looking.  One of them was my mother.  She is the most beautiful woman I had the pleasure of watching each day.  Standing outside the bathroom door watching her put her makeup on, teasing her hair, piling the Aquanet on that beehive hairdo!  It was a time when children can play out in the street until the street lights came on, a time when children didn't bully each other but played non-stop outdoors.  It was a great time when indoors we enjoyed listening to soap operas on the radio, played the 45s Motown records on the turntable and sat in front of a tiny 7 inch black and white tv watching 30 minute sitcoms.  Although we didn't have all the new technology or the video games, we were happy, healthy kids who up until now, are still in contact with the neighborhood kids!  Those were the days, I digress... until my next rant.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

CHECK OUT THE NEW WEBSITE

This is exciting!!!! The new website is up.  Although still in it's baby steps it is up and running.  I will be spending the next couple of months tweaking it to perfection.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been so far.  Thank you so much for your support.  Click this link www.myhappycocoon.com and leave me some comments, contact information, sign my guestbook and share with everyone you know.  More content coming up.  These are just the first stages.  Thanks again.... TILL MY NEXT RANT, in a few hours.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!!