knowledgeofgoodandevil

He was staggering in front of me, as I walked my early morning walk. The man in front of me kept walking into trees and stumbling, almost falling on the ground, but not quite yet. I couldn’t see his face, as I was behind him. I thought he was someone, just walking out of some all night party, drunker than a skunk. As I watched him from behind, I realized he was a man I’d seen on my walks before. This man was in trouble! He wasn’t drunk, he was having a heart attack or something!

I caught up to him and grabbed his arm. I steadied him, and told him to sit down on the curb. I asked him if I could call someone for him. He slurred out the words for me to call his wife. Half his face was drooping and drool was coming out of his mouth. I asked him for his phone number and I had to concentrate really hard to understand the numbers he was giving me. When I dialed the number, I got an answering machine. I left a message, hoping his wife would pick up. Maybe she was screening her calls. I said that her husband was here and I think he’s having a heart attack. He looked up at me and said, “Stoke, I’m having a stoke!” I quickly changed it and said he was having a stroke. She didn’t pick up. I dialed again, and left another message, telling her my phone number and where we were located. No answer, just the answering machine. I dialed again, and again, hoping to catch his wife, repeating my number and our location.

For some reason, I felt I needed to go get my car. I think in the back of my mind, I was going to drive him home. I called his wife again, and she finally picked up. I explained to her that her husband might be having a stroke and told her exactly where we were located. We were literally under a corner where two streets intersected. Now that his wife was on her way, I went to get my car. Still not sure why I thought I had to get my car. On my way to the car, I called 911 to get an ambulance there. I told them where he was and they told me to stay with him. I told them I was on my way to get my car and they told me to go back. I was close to my car, so I got in it and drove back to where this stroke victim was. His wife hadn’t come yet, but soon a fire truck and ambulance quickly arrived. They sat him up on a stretcher, unbuttoned his shirt, and began putting wires on his chest. They put on an oxygen mask. I looked at him, sitting there on that stretcher, on the side of the street, wires crisscrossing his body, him, utterly helpless. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing I could do, except to call his wife and 911. The men working on him told me to stand back, while they worked.

The men said I could go, so I left. The man’s wife hadn’t showed up yet, but she was on her way. I walked to my car. On my way home, I burst into tears. To face a life and death situation like that was overwhelming. Life felt so fragile at that moment. He was just like me, walking around the lake to get exercise, when his whole life changed in an instant.

Flash forward, several months later and I’m walking my usual route when I see a truck is coming towards me like they’re stopping to talk to me. I look in the cab of the truck, and there’s the man who had, had a stroke. He rolls his window down. He says he wants to thank me, I saved his life that day. His speech was perfect. There seemed to be no side effects to the stroke he suffered. He said he owed me a lot and thanked me again.

I felt whole. I felt overwhelmed. I am not a nurse, nor a doctor. Yet, this man was thanking me for saving his life. After finishing my talk with the man, I felt like I was walking on cloud nine. God used me to save a life. I have no medical skills whatsoever. The only skill I needed was to be there and have a cell phone that works.

God can use us any way He wants. We don’t need the skills or the resume to match whatever it is God wants. I mean, if anyone should have been walking behind the guy having a stroke, it should have been my sister who is a nurse. But it was me. All I had to offer was a cell phone. I had to dial two numbers and one of them only had three digits. God can use any of His children at any time to do any kind of work. Just be willing, and God will walk you through it.

 

I have been spending a bit of time in the DMV lately. Both kids just got their learner’s permits. This week, my son got his. As we stood in the appointment line, my son looked around and noted how all the workers seemed angry, depressed or both. The line we were in creeped slowly to the counter. Though we had made an appointment, we still had to wait for over twenty minutes, just to be told to go to another window. I told my son, this is your government at work! That’s why communism doesn’t work. This is what happens, when the government controls things.

Standing there in that slow, slow line I remembered a time when I saw capitalism pitted against government control and how well capitalism scored. Around Christmas time, a number of years ago, I had to go to the post office. You know, it was that time of the year, when we need to mail stuff. I went in there to face long, long lines. There were only two employees taking customers. Neither one of them, couldn’t have gone any slower. It was like they’d just eaten a huge pasta meal with garlic bread and they were in serious need of a nap. They needed a caffeine kick, or just any kind of kick to get them moving. A third employee came up to the counter as if they were going to start working. But alas, it was a fake out. She looked up at the long lines waiting, then proceeded to piddle around at her space. She moved a stapler from here to there. She moved something else that apparently needed moving. She hummed and hawed. No thought, on her part, of getting in gear, and seeing some customers. I frowned at her. Not sure anyone else frowned, but I was going to let my feelings known and not throw her a smile. Not that she noticed. She proceeded to piddle around her space, doing who knows what, while the long, long lines didn’t get shorter.

After my post office visit I had to go to Federal Express that evening to pick up a package. I’m naming them because they deserve some congratulations for a job well done. When I got into the Federal Express line, I was behind maybe three people. As soon as I joined the line, an employee, looked up at me, and yelled into the intercom for another employee to come help at the counter. I watched the customer at the counter, hand the employee a receipt, and then watch the employee start sprinting to the back to retrieve the package. When I say sprinting, I mean they were hauling butt. The employee came back in a couple of minutes out of breath, handing the package to the customer. The next customer came up to the counter, the employee smiled at them, then sprinted into the back again. Meanwhile, a third employee came running up to the counter, to start taking customers. They didn’t piddle around their space, they just hollered for the next in line. These Federal Express people were all over it. I thought they must keep in good shape with all the sprinting they were doing. They were sprinting and smiling all over the place. Unlike, the DMV, where NOBODY smiles. They’ll yell at you, but NOBODY smiles. I was outta there in less than 15 minutes.

Government should be in charge of very little. They should fix our roads, and keep our country safe and that’s it. They can’t handle more than that. Look at the post office and DMV. Those employees have no incentive to work hard. They have no incentive to be friendly and do the best job they can. What’s the point? They get paid no matter what.

We don’t need no stinkin big government. Giving the government control is like handing a toddler really sharp knives and hoping the toddler won’t cut off any of their toes or slash the couch or slash anyone else around them. You know that’s just not going to happen. With the knives in the toddler’s hand someone and something is going to get hurt and badly, I might add.

The government is just like a toddler: selfish, out of control, and in need of constant supervision. We don’t expect toddlers to behave themselves. We really shouldn’t expect the government to be anything but a toddler.

And that, my friends, is why I’m not a communist, but a capitalist. If you want to really understand how well government works, just go spend some time in the DMV. That’s our government at it’s finest. Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”

One night, in high school, when I slept in my bed I woke up in the middle of the night with a feeling of complete terror. It was a horrible feeling. I woke up and opened my eyes. I could see, in the corner of my room, a tall, black figure with a tall pointed hat on its head. It took my breath away and I quickly shut my eyes tight and began praying desperately. I didn’t want to see whatever it was standing in the corner of my room. I was a believer at the time, so I cried out to the Lord to make it go away and to please protect me. I kept praying over and over again, but with my eyes closed tight. I didn’t want to see the thing again.

I’m not sure when I fell back to sleep, but I remember waking up in the morning, relieved that it was morning and there was no more tall, black figure standing in the corner of my room. The feeling of terror had gone away too.

Fast forward to quite a few years later, and I’m watching a video of a woman who gets saved out of witchcraft and practicing the occult. She started fooling around with the Ouija Board, and then it grew out of that to tarot cards and dabbling in the occult. What scared her was, she would see this image of a tall, black figure with a tall pointed hat on it’s head, haunting her. Whenever she saw it, it frightened her. She knew there was a connection between her new found hobby of witchcraft and the thing she was seeing. When she described the figure, chills went down my back. I had seen the same entity. It had scared me too. I had forgotten all about it, until I heard this woman describe it. Ultimately, this woman came to know the Lord as her Savior.

Satan is real. Demons are real. God describes Satan as prowling around like a roaring lion seeking who he can destroy. When I woke up in the middle of the night, way back in high school, one of Satan’s demons was standing in the corner of my room. He couldn’t harm me. I was a believer at the time. I was a child of God. But he certainly scared me. I’m not sure why he was there, I just know that Satan and the demons spent all their time seeking out who they can destroy.

God has warned us about our enemy, Satan and demons. He’s warned us about practicing witchcraft and the occult. God says they are an abomination to Him. Why? Because there are two sides to live this life. God asks us to trust in Him. To believe in Him. To pray to Him. Practicing witchcraft and the occult is paying homage to the enemy. That’s how the enemy operates. Witchcraft and the occult are practices that Satan has designed. They do not come from God.

We are in the last days. I believe the spiritual warfare is getting hotter and hotter as we near the end. Satan is roaring like a lion. We, as believers, need to be absolutely, totally committed to Jesus Christ. We can’t let anything that even hints at witchcraft to be in our lives. We can’t let our guard down. We can’t fool around with witchy things or occultic things. They are an affront to God. He finds them an abomination.

I’ve never been tempted to get into those kinds of things. Maybe, it’s because of the visitor I had in my room in high school. I can still feel that feeling of terror I felt back then. I can still feel and remember the fear I felt. Why would I ever allow that back in my life in any way shape or form? To know God, to have a relationship with Him brings such peace, indescribable peace. I want that always. I tasted what the enemy has to offer. I felt it and I don’t want to feel it ever again.

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

You’ve heard that phrase before, haven’t you? It’s true. “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

This past January, I put my homeschooled sixteen year old into his first ever, college class. We’re trying to get him ready for college, so he either needed to take the SAT subject test in World History or take a college World History class. We thought we’d give it a whirl and let him try out the history class at college.

I thought this would be safe. I thought this would actually be fun. We have spent our many years homeschooling, studying World History and U.S. History. This would probably be easy for my boy. It would be mostly review for him. Maybe the professor would throw in some extra facts we hadn’t gone over to round out his education. We thought this would just be a continuation of our homeschooling. Hey, it’s history. What could go wrong with that?

Apparently, a lot. My boy went to his first class. When he came out I asked him how it went. He nodded his head. It wasn’t too bad he said. The professor introduced the class and reviewed what they would go over. I asked him a few more questions. He said the professor talked about a global economy and how that was important to the world. We needed a global economy. My very conservative ears perked up. “Global economy? Global economy?” We don’t need no stinkin global economy. We’re not globalists. I frowned. Huge red flags popped up in my head. Well this was Monday. The next class would be Wednesday. We’ll give it a chance.

Meanwhile, my son reminded me that we needed to get the book from the bookstore. He already had reading assignments before the next class. Sure, we can get the book. So Tuesday, we got the book. My snoopy little self couldn’t resist cracking open the book when I got home. I like World History. I would peruse the book and see how much I do know about World History. Hah!

The first page, the first paragraphs discussed WHAT the class would be going over. First, it slaughtered Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus wasn’t a man, reading the book, he was painted as an evil monster. There was absolutely NOTHING GOOD about Christopher Columbus. NOTHING!!! To be a proper human being, one should probably not let the name Christopher Columbus pass our lips unless one is cursing the evil monster he was. Sheesh.

I skimmed down the page because I saw the words: World War 2. I read that World War 2 was caused by extreme nationalism. Seriously?!? Nothing about an evil maniac, named Adolf Hitler. I looked farther down the page. Nope. No Hitler mentioned. No World War 2 was caused by extreme nationalism. Alrighty then!

I looked back up on the first page to see that the class would cover obscure Indian tribes, tribes I never even heard of. They would also go into obscure people groups from South America. No, they weren’t going to touch the Incas or Aztecs. No, the book would discuss groups that had no effect on World History.

This was a load of c**p! This was revisionist history! Good grief! I called for my son! This is a load of c**p I tell him. You’re dropping the class. You’ll be taking the SAT subject exam.

“If we don’t know history, we are doomed to repeat it.” If we don’t know the main events of what happened, how can we try and not let it happen again. Rome fell. The greatest, most powerful democratic civilization collapsed, why? Our judicial system comes from there. Shouldn’t we study that and not some obscure Indian tribe that made no effect on human history?

Adolf Hitler was a raving lunatic. Most of Germany did NOT agree with him. In fact, many of his military advisors didn’t want him to start a second world war. That’s a big distinction from “extreme nationalism.”

Our public colleges are rewriting history. Kids coming out of those schools aren’t going to know true history. They won’t see how communism has never worked. They won’t see how globalism is bad. We are seeing the effects of not teaching our kids true history. Our freedoms are slipping away, and the left thinks that’s okay. The left blames Trump, when he actually is for protecting our first amendment rights of free speech.

Be aware, that when your kid goes to a public college, they’re going to study c**p. If you still have them at home, you can still do damage control. Let them know what they will face. Start a conversation with them about real history. If not, “we are doomed to repeat it.”

Do you ever feel like your prayers bounce off of the ceiling and never make it to heaven? Do you ever feel like God is listening to everyone, but you? Do you ever feel like the wallflower at a school dance, sitting on the sideline, all alone, wishing God would take notice of you? I have. It’s not a good feeling. It’s a rather hopeless feeling. Those kinds of feelings are so powerful, they actually scared me.

God takes us on many journeys in life. He teaches us. He guides us. He shows us the way. The human experience is plagued with disappointments, sadness, discouragement, and angst. Along side those feelings, joy enters in and we breath a sigh of relief until the next storm comes and knocks us down.

I felt this way a long time ago, when I was returning to college for my senior year. I came back from Alaska, leaving my twin sister behind. I had a depressing summer, recovering from Satan dancing on my head. I couldn’t shake the depression and feeling of hopelessness when I returned to school. I went to class, ate at the cafeteria, went to bed, and got up the next day to do it all again. It was like I was going through the motions of being a college student, but felt nothing. I was like a robot. I had no joy, no hope.

I hated feeling this way. I couldn’t shake it. I cried out to the Lord, but felt my prayers were truly bouncing off the ceiling. I begged God and pleaded with Him to make me feel better. Please, please, please Lord! Help me! I can’t live like this. And nothing. I continued to go through the motions of being a college student: go to class, eat at the cafeteria, and go to bed. I wondered how long I could last feeling this way. I kept praying desperate prayers, begging God to take away this depression. Still nothing.

While I felt that my prayers were truly bouncing off the ceiling, God was not absent. He heard every one of my prayers. He saw me as I was: broken, hopeless, sad, and desperate for peace. I don’t know when it was or how many times I had cried out to the Lord, before God sent three people my way to give me a message of hope and encouragement. An old friend came up to visit me and listened to me and prayed with me. A girl down the hall of my dorm, out of the blue, gave me a note that said she was praying for me and she was there for me if I needed it. And lastly, a guy in my major, stopped me in the cafeteria and told me he needed to talk to me. He sat with me at lunch and talked to me for over an hour repeating the things I had only told God about my life and how I was feeling. Towards the end of the conversation, I realized it wasn’t the guy talking, it was God talking through the guy. There was no way he could have known the things he was saying except that God was speaking through him. These three people encouraged me through a span of a few days. By the end of my lunch, I could feel a glimmer of hope. Tiny specks of peace were breaking through my heart.

When I first heard the story of, “Footprints in the Sand, “ I shivered with recognition. I had been there before, and the idea of God carrying me was exactly how I felt when God sent three people to pull me out of the depression I was in.

That’s why I love the story of Elijah so much. When he’s laying there in the wilderness begging God to take his life, I say, “Yep, I hear you brother! Been there before, I know how you feel!” 1 Kings 19:4-8

We are not alone, believer, in this world. We may feel like we are, but feelings, shmeelings. For the believer, that’s not reality. We are never alone. Never, ever. He is ALWAYS with us. He can be counted on. He keeps His Word. And He says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

So take heart, dear sister. You may feel like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, but they aren’t. You may feel like God has left you, but He hasn’t. God will rescue you. He will lift you up. And God will restore you to a better place than when you were before. Shortly after this, I met my future husband, and we just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary.