Pines Pages

[Christnundrconstruxn]

Dearest sister Pine
PLEASE do not give up on this, I believe God will stand with you through this as well as any other test of your strength
You ARE a VERY strong woman that has endured more than most will ever know, and I believe He has given these test to you for a reason, He is honing you for special duties that He needs done, so if you feel you are following His direction in this PLEASE do not give in to satan's temptations to give up
When you speak and they do not listen...speak again and again and again until they listen, I remember a story from somewhere that a person continued to say but no one was willing to listen until one day he was heard only because they got tired of him continually speaking and his persistance was the ONLY reason he was heard.
May God continue to give you the strength and knowledge you need for this fight as well as giving you the assurance you ARE a woman of strength.
God bless

[Dora]

Thank you CUC bro. Those were very kind words.

I met with two people who originally said they were willing to join the cause. I could tell just 10 minutes into the meeting they were pulling back. Where they over whelmed or were they feeling they signed up for something they were not ready to sign up for so I stopped and asked. They were over whelmed. Which is hard for me as I felt I really didn't give them much information. I don't know how much info to give. They are on board and a teacher is very on board. So there are 5 of us ready and willing to be the back bone of this.

This has been exhausting work. Yet can give me the highest of highs. I still feel it's what I was born for. I believe it's what I was allowed to suffer for.

I wanted to give up on this all day. This morning I said I have to do this for this girl. I sat talking over a cappuccino with this young victim about what we could do to bring awareness to the community. This will give her hope that her voice can and will fight the bad guy and give her some reason to continue forward when things feel so bleak.

I've got a lot of things in the pot. My own case against my uncle. My uncle who is still hurting my family. And this cause created to help stop this. It is at times refreshing to be here and be able to reach someone. It's often nearly instant gratification where all these others have little gratification and the gratification comes in little moments that I have to work so hard to get to.

[Dora]

Wow It's been 8 months since I've typed in my journal.

Tonight I was so hungry for God. I asked Him to speak and opened the bible. I saw how despite how angry He was at His people because of their actions He continued to meet there needs and bless them. It said to me, even in my deepest sin He won't leave me. I felt led to go further in the bible and read about holding up my banner. Go into war with all I got. I'm tired. I'm physically and emotionally tired and it effects my spirit. Or perhaps my spirit is tired and it effects me physically and emotionally. I stood and asked God to not forget me, His servant. The next verse I read was... "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?" Psalm 13:1

Then I heard, "Send up your battle cry."

I looked up battle cry: A battle cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same military unit. Battle cries are not necessarily articulate, although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious sentiment. Their purpose is a combination of arousing aggression and esprit de corps on one's own side and causing intimidation on the hostile side. Battle cries are a universal form of display behaviour (i.e., threat display) aiming at competitive advantage, ideally by overstating one's own aggressive potential to a point where the enemy prefers to avoid confrontation altogether and opts to flee. In order to overstate one's potential for aggression, battle cries need to be as loud as possible, and have historically often been amplified by acoustic devices such as horns, drums, conches, carnyxes, bagpipes, bugles, etc. (see also martial music).

Battle cries are closely related to other behavioral patterns of human aggression, such as war dances and taunting, performed during the "warming up" phase preceding the escalation of physical violence.

To me that says with all I have I need to make a noise to let my enemy know MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN ANYTHING he's GOT!

[RainaSkye]

awesome

[Dora]

I haven't been here in a while. I had some struggles but now I feel strong enough to get back to work. It feels good to give. It feels good to help others.

I don't even want to think about 2012. It is over. I learned a lot. I want to take what I learned and leave 2012 behind with the unhealthy thoughts and actions.

May I please the Lord this 2013. I know I fall short, but that gives His grace a chance to do it's work in cleansing me.

[Dora]

Wow three years since I've posted here.

First I want to say how wonderful it is to see so many of my good friends here.

What's happened to me in the past three years?

I've had two of my strong supporters die. Ollie died of a heart attach and Sophie got out of the fence and was hit by a car. Oh I should mention they were my dogs. They both were boxers. I now have a one year old boxer and a 4 year old mixed boxer. The four year old was rescued. He's a sweet heart. Part pit. They help keep my feet on the ground.

I've had all my kids graduate. This has been very hard for me letting them grow up. One of my kids fell for satans trap in drinking and drugging. I leaned hard on God during that time. He's now clean of both. He fell away from God but now I see him becoming stronger and stronger in His love for Jesus. Praise God. My other son has been steady and strong in his love for God and his service to him. My daughter is turning 23. Wow! She tries to hard to please me but we bump heads a lot. I'm trying to become different in our relationship and accepting her for who she is. I confess I hurt her and have been rude to her. But communication is the biggest reason behind this.

It's so very hard having my children become adults. At 44 I felt the need to have another baby. It was so strong I thought of adoption. That still may be an option. In the mean time we bought 18 chickens and 2 ducks to add to our flock of 4 chickens. Four chickens was manageable but I'm finding 22 chickens to be a little more than we need. For some reason the chickens make me happy. I love watching them. The ducks crack me up. If I can find out how to post pictures I will.

Personally I've been in counseling. A psychiatrist gave me lots of letters to add to my name. BP, BPD, PTSP
That's a whole lot to deal with. But God is leading me down this path of healing. It's helping me understand others as well. It's created a whole new person in me. These disorders I have are placed on me not by men but by satan and I expect to over come them with the Lord and He will be praised. So if I get a little crazy from time to time please forgive me. Satan broke me but God is healing me.

I no longer run a daycare. I'm a rural postal carrier now. I love my job but it's part time. Sometimes I have an entire week off work which leaves me wondering what I'm suppose to do with my days. Plus the bills still come in. This is my struggle to find my place where God wants me. Work isn't the answer.

Since my absence here I've felt I haven't a ministry anymore. The children are gone. Ministering is difficult. We ministered to the teens my kids brought home but they are all adults and busy with college and careers. So I spend a lot of time alone. It's hard to go from being extremely busy to being alone. Needless to say I pray a lot. God is with me as He is with you. His love is so amazing. His care and concern for each of us is unimaginable.

My dog is ripping up my couch and there's eggs to collect so I gotta close for now. Take care and God bless.

[mlg]

Hi Pine,

I too just returned here in the last couple of weeks after a couple of years away. Interesting to see God calling us here again. I am not sure what He has planned but I can't help but think we are being drawn to the Oasis for His purpose. I miss you. I miss our morning talks. I hope we can meet in chat sometime and talk.

Love ya lots

[Dora]

I've always struggled with significance and my goals in life. I seem to not have any goals that I can reach. God has lead me to a verse in the bible about just this very thing. The bible tells exactly what my goals should be. Wow what a relief to have it written out.

Confirming One’s Calling and Election

2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters,[a] make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

My goals in life should be faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love.

Realizing God has given my written instructions on my goals in life has brought me so much joy! And peace!

God is so amazing and His word in incredible. Praise Jesus! God is good.

[Dora]

When life gets ruff, which is nearly daily, I keep hearing "walk it out."

What does this mean to me? First it means to keep living and living knowing Christ if for me not against me. For some reason living my life because God is for me is the most exciting news. It can drag this depressed hopeless girl up to the heights of the clouds.

I remind myself of other things like God has my every day planned out for me. I don't have to know about it, He has it! What ever the day brings He has known about it long in advance and is in favor of me not only over coming the day and what ever it hold but enjoying it! Wow that's pretty exciting too.

God is with me. Not only with me (or you) but He wants a very close relationship with me where I turn to Him constantly as if He's my side partner cause He is. As my partner, my helper, He is creating favors to exists in my life and in my day and for my loved ones. Good things planned and placed carefully through out for us to be blessed with.
James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above
One time I reminded myself to be watchful of gifts because God blesses me through out the day every day. As soon as I did a lovely butterfly swirled around in front of me. Sometimes the gift is a small little creatures that dazzle with their beauty. So I'm watchful.

As soon as I get distracted from or forget these my day begins to lack enough meaning. I get stressed and depressed. I need to be constantly reminded.

[Dora]

God wants us to be successful, fulfilled and happy.

A successful Christian life comes from the right goals. Which are faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless or unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.

Taken from Neil T. Anderson and Dave Parks book Stomping out the Darkness.

[Dora]

Our own personal pain creates a passion for others who are hurting. Yet if the devil can keep us an emotional wreck our effectiveness in Christ is hindered. God wants us to be successful. We must make sure our beliefs line up with Gods truth.

Confirming One’s Calling and Election

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Scripture gives us the answer to how to be a successful Christian.
Our primary goal is to adopt Gods character.

Success isnt hindered on circumstances. Its hinged entirely on obedience to God.

Joshua 1:7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.



Happiness comes from wanting what you have.
Hebrews 13:5b "be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."


Fun comes from enjoying life moment by moment.
One of our biggest road blocks to having fun is trying to keep up appearance.

Security comes from focusing on eternal values.
Often we may feel like we will feel secure if we are accepted by certain people or groups. We may try hard to fit in. This can be exhausting, frustrating, and draw our resources from us as we have to keep up the appearance of fitting in. When we seek security in knowing our success comes from God alone we find a peace far above fitting in.

Having inner peace in knowing no one can take you from God.
John 10:27-29
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are sealed in Christ. We are guaranteed salvation and eternal life.
ephesians 1:13-14 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.


Peace comes from quieting the inner storm
Our world around us may be a raging storm with bills, illness, relationships, ect (things you cant control) but we can have inner peace in knowing we are Right with God.

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Daily time in prayer, worship and reading the bible will help you get a grip on peace.

Taken from Stomping out the Darkness by Neil Anderson and Dave Park.

[Dora]

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We must have weapons of divine power if we are going to fight a spiritual battle.
The main target we must destroy are the strong holds of the mind. Strong holds are bad patterns of thoughts that are burned into our minds either through repetition over time or through one time, deeply shocked experiences.

This is extremely exciting to me as I have many strong holds due to my child hood.

Satan has no power over us except what we give him. When we fail to take every thought captive we can be deceived into believing his lies. Satan can and does plant thoughts in our minds. They seem like our own mind coming up with these thoughts. It can be or it can be satan. We have to take every thought captive and line it up against Gods word. When we let a harmful thought continue in our thoughts it eventually will become a strong hold.

Low self esteem can be one of these. God wants us to be victorious. He has created us in His own image and has made us lesser than no other human. Any thoughts that do not align with this needs to be taken captive before it becomes a strong hold. If it is already a strong hold continually aligning it up with Gods word will release you from it. Freedom!

1 Timothy 4:1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

I see this strongly in my church right now. We hired a new pastor. A young man with a beautiful family. I've gotten to know him and his heart. He loves the Lord and only seeks to serve him. In doing so he has changed some things at the church. I can see the changes are wonderful. Yet some don't want change. They want the same church they've always had. So they've torn this young preacher down until he finally had to walk away. These people truly believe this man was of the devil and that they were doing what was right. Which is scary because if they can believe so heartedly of this lie are there lies I am believing. It's so important to know God. Not just know him as savior and Lord but to know his spirit and his word. Those who fought this young man destroyed the church.

Now it's my position to not hate them for this. Which I'm struggling with.

I have to go find some coffee now.