Blowing in the Wind

I have never really understood the old saying that goes like this....Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but names will never harm me. Possibly some long ago person made this up as a form of mental self protection but this is just not true. We are human beings with feelings and emotions and being called names, chastised, or taunted is deeply hurtful be it justified (such as correcting a child to teach right from wrong) or spiteful. Today some deeply painful memories of a particular "chastisement" I received rose to the surface for an encore causing me to reprocess and relive a deeply hurtful time reminding me that words once spoken can not be retrieved. Those syllables and sounds are etched on my heart and can not be retrieved by the owner.....they are scattered in the wind and though there may be forgiveness and healing, there are consequences. I have been wrestling with this for a while regarding forgiveness...do you forgive and forget?.... and have come to realize through much prayer, dialogue, study, and soul searching that even with forgiveness, there may still be consequences. I guess I already knew this, just needed a reminder jolt! For instance, I can forgive my husband for forgetting to put gas in the truck, but the consequence is that we are sitting by the side of the road waiting for roadside assistance to help us out because we ran out of gas. What do I need to do to protect myself, my heart....take care of my spiritual, physical, emotional health and needs? What is the best course? Sometimes the solution may seem like a lose/lose proposition on the surface but I am discovering that I must protect myself rather than returning for a repeat of the previous emotional hurt. One lesson that can be learned is that one must measure their words carefully because once they are spoken they will be forever "Blowing in the Wind".....Turn the other cheek....forgive....but be wary of putting yourself in a situation where the same thing can happen again.

~Just a work in progress.....Phil. 4:13~I need the strength promised by the Lord each moment of each day!

~Sparkle~

Scary Picture!

Be Scared....Be Very Scared!!!!!

I (Could it be when you've never said the Pledge of Allegiance before, you don't know what to do without a TelePrompter?) · This seems impossible to believe! ·

I stumbled across this picture that was printed in the Washington Post showing the Obamas with their left hands over their hearts during the Pledge of Allegiance. Just think about this for awhile and what you think it means. More later.

~Sparkle Diva~

Fools on the Hill

I continue to be amazed and deeply distressed as I see pictures of our "leaders" of Congress marching to the capitol on Sunday and making a mockery of the job each was charged to do as a representative of the people in their district and thus collectively the population of the entire country. I am embarrassed for my country but do understand that in many cases we are not dealing with the sharpest tacks in the box; perhaps some french fries fell out of their Happy Meal, but many are devoid of a strong moral compass and can be bought and sold to the highest bidder, Chicago style in many cases....bribes, bullying, threats, etc.

Speaker Pelosi is attired in a lavender suit with matching pumps and giddily carrying a super-sized gavel I am guessing to match the super-sized ego and arrogance in her persona that is increasingly cartoonish. She is followed by her minions as they merrily "lead" us all off the cliff by attempting to force an apparantly fluid healthcare bill on us that really has not been put in writing.....just bursts of ideas and thoughts that may or may not be included. Huh?!? This really makes sense, doesn't it? Well, not really! I have some strong opinions about the whole issue of socialized healthcare and how this is not the slope we need to be sliding down and could go on and on and on some more, but what bothers me about these circus parades and pictures is we are watching extremely incompetent leaders pretending to do something they simply do not have the ability to successfully carry out. These clowns are the Peter Principle in action......these people have risen to the level of their incompetence and we are paying the price by allowing them to continue to practice their psuedo-skills by not holding them accountable for their actions or inactions and not voting them out of office. Term limits would not solve everything, but perhaps we could get some real talent and brainpower in Congress or at least shake up the place and accomplish some positive goals and get pointed in the right direction if we could get some new people in there who were not career politicians with a sense of entitlement. If the shoe fits the representative can wear it. (lavender pumps in Pelosi's case......I think this bothers me because it is an indication of how caught up this woman is in the outward appearance, but she is attempting to pass a bill that is akin to The Emperor's New Clothes aka he was naked, wearing nothing and she is peddling nothing....smoke and mirrors!!!!!!! ) Priorities might be a bit upside down. "The majority of this group of legislators can not fulfill their job descriptions because they do not possess the intellectual and physical tools" to do so......inside quotes from a piece I read today by Frosty Woolridge, a political observer and pundit.

I think that is it in a nutshell, using Mark Twain's famous quote....."Suppose you were an idiot; and suppose you were a member of Congress-ah, but I repeat myself."

We must hang in there and one avenue of action can be found at www.blowoutcongress.com advocating a complete turnover of Congress and offering a concrete plan of action that each one of us can participate in at some level.

I love my country and tremble at its dismantling from every direction by the anarchists masquerading as progressives who are socialists/communists at the core. Real progress would mean doing everything we can to build up and strengthen our country! Lest we forget, pray, pray, pray without ceasing....

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, I will forgive their sin and heal their land.

~Sparkle~

Where Did My Country Go?

Every day it seems we wake up to more bad and distressing news about the economy and events in our nation and world.  Things are becoming increasingly more complex and difficult to process and discernment between what is happening and what we are told is happening is an inexact science at best.   I believe that is part of the point of what our government is trying to do in order to keep us walking around like a bunch of Eeyore's and focusing on poor me and how much worse can it get rather than actually seeing the rug being pulled and tugged right out from underneath our feet and us perhaps trying to resist.  No government or system ever devised is perfect, but we have been living in the greatest country on earth with a robust economic system and now we are watching as the "magicians" in Washington abracadabra it away at alarming speed disregarding all rules, laws, and regulations or rewriting some of them to suit their purposes.  There is much at play behind the scenes that the little people, which would be us, do not see or know nothing about, but the powers that be have been working  a long while across party lines and many presidencies toward their goals and our best interests are not theirs.  I am saddened and grieving at the rapidly accelerating takedown of our free market economy made even simpler when private companies grab government handouts that are never provided without a spider web of strings and conditions.  Witness GM, Chrysler, banks, and many more who drank the kool-aid and took the money and now are being told exactly how high and where to hop, skip, and jump....all the way to bankruptcy with full government control.  Guess Ford had a better idea in not jumping on the handouts bandwagon because they alone seem poised to make it through the storm without surrendering totally to Big Brother.  People are chosen for jobs, such as Sonya Sotomayor as nominee for a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, based on their ethnicity, gender, and radical agendas which includes using their job to enact social change rather than strictly interpret the law. Whatever happened to looking for the  best possible candidate for the job?  This woman has a high percentage of her rulings overturned because she does not seem to understand the cases on her docket.   Each day sees more bricks crumbling and a weakening of the wall that is our economic system.  Why does our government insist on trying to experiment with failed centralized and socialist systems of operation?     The answer lies in finding the lowest common denominator in human nature and the quest for power and riches for the few at the top while the rest of us are just commodities to be used at will and discarded.   Why else do we need universal health care?  Am I too stupid to be able to make my own decisions regarding my own health?   This is just a way to become totally intrusive in our personal lives.   We have been sliding down the slippery slope for a long time, just as the frog placed in a pan of water on the stove does not realize it is boiling to death until it is too late due to the gradual increase of the temperature of the water.   There is total regression here on social issues crescendoing to the point that what was formerly unacceptable is now the norm.  Television is a prime example of this as many people are saturated with sexual innuendo and blatant overt images and dialogue that would have been unthinkable decades before.   Being 59, my standards of decency from the "stone age" would seem prudish to even young conservatives today.  I grew up in the infancy of tv and "I Love Lucy" and "Andy Griffith" are light years away from Homer Simpson and Southpark, not to mention Desperate Housewives where I dropped my jaw when one of my sweet 6th graders told me that she and her mom watched it together when I asked if her mom was aware that she saw that program.  Yikes!

I guess I just want my country back, one where I rode my bicycle all over my little town without my parents worrying that I would be kidnapped and tortured by a sexual deviant, where I could listen to music (yeah, I admit, the Beatles were scandalous at the time), watch tv, read a book, all of those things without  saturating my mind with unhealthy and obscene drivel.    I like a place where opportunities to achieve your goals and reach for the stars were commonplace, even though there was always the possibility for failure as well.    That's life, a series of ups and downs.  We are either going into a valley or coming out of one...but there were always hope, dreams, possibilities.  Political correctness was unheard of and Bucky Covington's song about a different world when we were young was the way things still were.  

I am searching for ways that I can make a difference for now and for the future in tangible and nontangible ways.  

"If my people, who are called by name, will humble themselves and turn from their wicked ways, I will forgive their sins and heal their land."  

Pray, pray, pray, and follow His leading!  There is always hope!

~clg~

Grandparents Again....Yeah!!!!!!

Some good news that we are going to be grandparents again and this time it will be a grandson!

We enjoy our beautiful, smart, talented, and charming granddaughter Kendall so much and are overjoyed to be adding to the family, but when all is said and done, granddaughter, grandson...did not matter!  Each little person is unique and we were so excited to accept whatever God chose to add to the clan!  

Ken and I both grew up in a family with two girls and two boys and we have one of each, so I am really comfortable with the little guy coming along and am looking forward to shopping on the blue side of the aisle and in the car section, too.  I am loving all of this Princess stuff being a lifelong Disney fan as Kendall is a little diva and loves flip flops like me, but have had some experiences with cities of blocks and roads all over the house so I am ready for this time, too!  

I know I will miss seeing the little one often as I did Kendall as a newborn, because I would stop by on my way home from school several times a week....not happening here, but just glad they are only an hour away....well, that doesn't always help either.  We have been having a terrible time trying to get together to celebrate April 1 and April 2 birthdays for Ken and Chris due to travel and illness.  Hoping for this Saturday, before the Easter basket stuff goes stale and all that, too, as we are still hanging on to that stuff for Kendall!

~clg~