SelahV Today by hariette petersen

WHEN LIFE WAS SIMPLE

"Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner."  Rutherford.

Pinches of yellow fashioned for me.  Dandelions.  Between my birth and age seventeen, our family moved six times.  Each uprooting took with it a memory.  Some good--some not so good.  One thing that stands out in my mind is the stability of the dandelion.  The flowers I gathered by the handfuls at every place I lived.  I'd bring them in and put them in a mason jar and fill it up with water. 

Flowers.  For the most part, they're considered a nuisance.  And for folks who prefer a pristene green lawn, they are burdensome to control once they sprout--dandelions are weeds.  Others make salads with the leaves.  Actually, they are pretty tasty to add to a bowl of lettuce. But whenever I see one, as I did yesterday, I think of the simple things of life.  I think of exactly what I did yesterday, I picked it and gave it to my two year-old granddaughter, HayJae. Just passing along one of life's simple pleasures.  It doesn't belong to me; but surely I can share it as long as I'm here. 

The reason we moved so many times when I was young is due, in part, to the instability of my dysfunctional childhood.  But no matter where we moved, the dandelion seemed to move with us.  I recall so many times I'd play with those soft-petaled flowers.  They were jewels in my treasure box, veggies in my pots, and even necklaces strung on a string.  A child sees beauty and value in what others may view as ugly and worthless.  A child finds love in the fields of life when love gets lost in the mundane tasks of life. 

Dandelions.  Golden gifts from earth burst forth from green fields.  Created to dot our landscapes with pleasure.  I found another huge dandelion and also gave it to HayJae.   She immediately took it and blew.  Tiny black seeds flew from a cotton-puff cluster and danced in the breeze like tiny ballerinas.  I managed to snap a few pictures before the seeds disappeared from the stem she held in her hand.  She giggled and said, "I want another one."   I searched but found none around.  I laughed to myself, as I thought of all the seeds she'd sown in the wind and I knew we'd have plenty come Spring.

Yes, God is the lender, I am the borrower.  And what He's created rests in my memory with peace beyond measure and I'll own it till He calls me home. [copyrighted, selahVtoday, 2007]

TIES THAT BIND

GRANDMA.  On my daddy's side--his mother.

Pictured here, she's standing at the wood cookstove outside.  It's propped up on cinderblocks.  It is summer time.  By the time I post this photo to my blog, Grandma will probably fade into obscurity behind this brightly colored Blue-willow china cup of coffee.  Obscurity--much like my memories of her.

I was just thirteen when she died.  She was the first person in my life that I saw dead in a casket.  The first cold body I touched and found wooden beneath my fingertips.  Forever etched in my mind is how I felt at the moment I touched what I thought would be her soft wrinkled hand.

No longer would she make fried chicken and white gravy on Sunday afternoons.  No longer would I see her canning fresh peaches or succulent tomatoes on this old cookstove outside the screened-in front porch.  No longer would I watch her hands in motion as she crocheted a lace scarf for the dresser in the guest room.  Grandma was gone.  Dead.  Where did she go?  I wondered. No one told me comforting thoughts like, "she's in Heaven with God or she's now an angel watching over you".   Nope.  Grandma was simply gone.  The only way I'd ever be able to see her again was by looking at pictures of the past.  The way we'd remember her was by going to the cemetery and laying out flowers at her grave.

Years ago, my dad made up an 8 X 10 black and white photograph of Grandma.  It's the one pictured here.  She had two daughters and five sons.  All her sons joined the Navy and served during World War II.  Her youngest, Daniel, was blown off his ship by a Japanese suicide bomber.  There is my greatest connection with Grandma.

I never realized Grandma grieved. I was so busy laughing, playing hide and seek in the woodsheds, picking strawberries in the patches out back, or eating beechnuts off the ground.  Grandma lost her youngest child, a son.  Years after Grandma lost her son, my Daddy lost his oldest son, Daniel--named after my uncle.  Odd how the ties that bind us can often be painful, but also sweet memories.  I never knew my uncle.  But now I can recall the memory of him etched on my dear grandmother's face.   Years and years later, I would lose my first born son, Paul, named after my dad.  Then over forty years later, I would lose my youngest child, a man of thirty-three years.

Loss.  Loss can bind.

As we move into the future, I find we as Christians are bound by many losses. The loss of virtue to society's whims.  The loss of sin's blackness to society's brushstrokes of tolerance and acceptance.  The loss of integrity to the rungs of positional posturing.  The loss of dignity to the exploits of greed.  The loss of humility to the towers of pride.  The loss of our laws to the impotency of just courts.  The loss of our liberty to the enslavement of some's freedoms.  The loss of life to the choices of others.  The loss of innocence to perverted predators.

So many losses.  Losses that bind.  Gains that separate.  If for not the Blood-Tie Who binds us, we'd be left drifting in a perpetual blazing abyss without Water to quench our thirst, and our only companion?  A worm that dieth not but feeding off the souls of our hearts.  Praise God for His perfect Attonement for our depraved indifference to His precepts, His will and His gifts of love.  SelahV  [copyrighted,selahVtoday,2007]

WHAT'S UP WITH SelahV?

So often folks tell me how much they like my screen-name: SelahV.  I just wanted to share with you what it means.

I've always loved the book of Psalms.  Throughout the chapters, I've often come across the word, "selah" at the end of a verse.  I learned a long time ago that selah means "pause, think about it".  Had I known Jesus when I had my daughter, I probably would have named her Selah.  But I didn't.  So when I was considering what to call myself in the Kingdom of Blog-land, I thought immediately of Selah.

However, I had heard of a music group called Selah and I didn't want to confuse anyone.  So I played with the name and thought of c' est la vie.  It's a French phrase that I had no idea how to spell, nor what it meant.  I just liked the old song I'd heard "C' est la vie said the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell".  I don't even remember any of the rest of that song.  But it is what brought me to the point of adding the V to selah.

As providence would have it, another blogger on another site told me how ingenious I was to come up with such a cool name.  And he wrote C' est la vie.  I asked him what it meant and he told me.  It means That's Life.

Unknowingly I had spelled my name like the phrase sounded.  SelahV.  I had chosen the V for victory in Jesus.  And when it all came together, I had SelahV--pause think about victory in Jesus--that's Life.  And there you have how SelahV came to be.  But the greatest part in all of this is that Jesus is my life.  I love Him so much.  If not for Him...I wouldn't be here...if not for Him, you wouldn't be reading this.  If not for Him, none of us would have life.  For in the beginning He was the Word and the Word was Jesus.  And Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life...and no one comes to the Father in Heaven except through Him.  He is the Door to Eternity.  Jesus.  Jesus. Jesus.  Pause, think about Him.  SelahV [copyrighted,selahVtoday,2007]

TIME~~SAVE IT OR WASTE IT

Sometimes time stands still.

It's those times we have to wait for the water to boil, the coffee to perk, the popcorn to pop, the iron to heat up.  OR...in the case of my granddaughter pictured here--the rollers to curl her hair.  She loves what hot rollers do to her waist-long sleek honey-blonde hair.  But she sure hates waiting for those rollers to do their magic.

Makes me wonder how God can be so patient with me.  Bet He sits up in Heaven next to His Son Jesus and leans over and says, Son, is she ever gonna learn?  Hmmmn.

Time is a strange commodity.  We want more of it so we can use more.  While we count the hours, we waste the moments.  I can't tell you on any given day how much time I waste.  I do wonder sometimes.

What must I be doing in order not to waste time?  Save it?  How can I save it?  The more I rush around trying to save time, the more I seem to waste.  Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything: a time to laugh--a time to cry.  A time to dance and a time not to dance.  A time to work and a time to play.  So I suppose time is less relevant in itself, than what one is doing within a given time.

Gosh, can you imagine?  God created the entire world in six days and then rested on the seventh.  Some weeks, given what I do, I rest six days and work one.  (If ya add up the hours of real-work-time versus wasted time)  I don't suppose sleep could be counted for wasting time.  But watching TV?  I do think that is a waste.  That's why I rarely watch it.  I must confess, I did watch American Idol last night and House.  Eeeek.  Dr. House pulled a humongous tapeworm from a girl's intestines that had been robbing her of vitamin B-12 and creating havoc in her endocrine system.  Gross thing to see.

I babysit my grandchildren quite a bit.  I don't consider that a waste of time.  Often I do it, because it gives my daughter time to run errands, catch up on bookkeeping and sometimes have lunch with her husband in peace and quiet.  And I get the added benefit of playing with playdoh, coloring mermaids, and painting rainbows.  Is that a waste of time?

I blog quite a bit.  I read alot more than I write, actually.  I've been learning alot of stuff I never knew.  I've learned differences in faiths.  Different Doctrines.  Politics of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

I've discovered how one person's attitude impacts another's attitude.  How one person's view inflames a multitude of others views.  And in some cases, how fruit-less it all appears in light of the true "fruit of the Holy Spirit".  I comment now and then when I feel my input is worth putting in.  But often, I'm misunderstood.  I'm not upset with that, though.  I've been misunderstood before, and I can truly understand how someone can get the wrong idea from another when they don't know that other person--their hearts, or their spirits.

Occasionally someone tells me my comments are "a bright light" or "encouraging" or "give them a laugh".  That is what I live for in the comments I leave.  I do want to be a bright Light and encourage folks to laugh.  Life is too short to be so intense that tension rules the Spirit within us.  There's just not enough time to waste it being angry.

Sometimes I just read the first two paragraphs of a person's blog and their summary--then I dive in to the comment stream.  Most times I only do that if I know some of the swimmers within the stream.  But honestly?

A lot of blogs are not worth reading.  Sorry.  I'm sure folks think that of mine, too.  I'm not offended though.  I don't really write to gain a huge audience.  I have a few friends who read me faithfully.  They copy my writing and give it to their spouses, or send it on to their friends.  That's neat.  Because if they like what I say, and it gives a moment of encouragement, or joy, or comfort, or edification to their thinking--I find that I've not wasted a second tapping out the words that I do on the keyboard before me.

Lately, I've been a bit tempted to read some of the more controversial blogs.  I noticed something about reading them, though.  They don't make me feel good.

Now, I don't mean that in a way that suggests I live by experience and feelings.  Because there is nothing I love more than my pastor's sermons on Sunday mornings when his Words prick my heart and convict me of change.  I'm talking about there are some blogs that do nothing...absolutely nothing to fuel the love I have in my heart.  The joy I want to impart.  The peace I want to render.  The gentleness, kindness and goodness I seek to emulate.  The patience and self-control I seek to cloister.  Some blogs leave me realizing I have truly wasted my time.

Then God says, "Oh, no, SelahV.  I led you here for a reason."  It's then I begin to question the Sovereignty of God.

But He gently and calmly tells me to pray.  "Pray without ceasing.  Pray blessings upon those whom you know are Mine.  Pray their hearts be softened and their eyes be opened.  Pray that their words pour forth as balms of Gilead.  Pray they repent.  Pray they seek My face, humble themselves and pray like I am calling you to do.  Pray they turn from any wicked self-exalting and self-centered way.  Pray for them, SelahV.  And then I will hear their voices and will open the windows of Heaven and pour out such blessings they won't be able to store them."

So I do.  And I will.  And I can't help but love them.  They are kin after all. [copyrighted,selahvtoday,2007]

   

WHERE WORDS ARE STORED

THERE WILL COME A DAY

When every word we say--spoken or written--will be revealed to the world and to the heavens above.  As I was about to respond on a blog's comment thread today, the Lord spoke ever so gently to me.  "SelahV, dear SelahV, you may leave your comment.  This is the freedom I have given you.  But remember, it may take a moment for it to appear in the Kingdom of Blogland, but it has already been saved in the Kingdom of Heaven.  So, yes, leave your comment, my child.  Post what your mind leads you to post, but let My Spirit be seen as the fruit I've blessed you with."

That was one heavy thought that mingled with mine.  God is so great.  So good and so merciful.  His Sovereignty leaves room for we humans to follow any dictate of our will we so desire.  He allows our plans to go forward.  He lets us wander in our wildernesses, climb any mountain, and settle into whatever valley our paths take us to.  But He is still God.  And with all of our self-inflated wisdom, His is Supreme.  The ways of man are right in his own eyes, but God's ways are not man's.

Whenever I wake in the morning, I am reminded of Whose day it is.  It's not mine, but His.  He's allowed me a few more moments to walk in it, talk in it and enjoy it.  What I do in His day, what I say in His day, is really up to me.  He gives me that freedom.  However, with that freedom comes reward or consequence.  And someday in His Day of Completion, He will reveal to my eyes what was pure as gold and what was simply hay and stubble.

I am not so much wise in my own eyes as I may sometimes think.  I am not as discerning as I should always be.  But as I "leave my comments" in the Kingdom of Blogland, I am praying they are worth reading someday in the Kingdom of Heaven.  While they may only take a moment to appear today, they are stored in a place no one can delete or erase.  And thus I am grateful for the Lord's gentle reminder to be kind, loving, patient, encouraging and merciful.  Are you?  SelahV  [copyrighted, selahvtoday,2007] 

FILLED TO THE BRIM

I took this picture of how much gas went into my tank after I filled up my van at the gas station on Thursday of last week.  As I left you in my previous blog, "Running on Empty", I had explained how the Lord got me from point A to point B as I ran on vapors and fumes to reach the gas station fourteen miles away.

I'd wanted to document exactly how little gas I had in my tank at the time of arrival to refuel.  As I look at this photo I can't help but see the sign "Please Pay First" at the top.  It brings to mind, what would happen to me if I ran out of gas on the moments of my life and met my final destination before God.

What if I hadn't had my debit card with me when I reached the gas station?  How would I have been able to "pay first" before I pumped the gas and traveled on my way?  I'd have to call on someone to have mercy on me and bring me some money.

Someday I will meet God face to face in glory, when my journey is over and I've run out of gas at last.  I won't have to worry about refueling my tank.  I know He, like the gas station attendant, will expect me to "pay first" before entering the Gates of Heaven.  And there's joy in my heart and confidence in my mind because He will have mercy on me.  Not because He'll give me a "free pass" through the gate.  But because His Son paid my way long ago.  His debit card is clear, there's plenty of collateral in His bank, even though others have used it, too.  When God looks at the records, He will find where I charged my trip to eternal life to His Son.  I am so grateful, I heeded the gauge of my life when I was running on empty twenty-plus years ago.  For today as I ponder the fuel to go onward--through eternity's great beyond, I know I am fueled-up, and filled to the brim, all because I've trusted Him.

Should anyone read this post and find themselves running on empty, please email me your thoughts.  I will do what I can to show you my Lord's debit card.  His card has an unlimited balance to access.  SelahV  [copyrighted,selahVtoday,2007]

RUNNING ON EMPTY

Empty.  I was fourteen miles from the nearest gas station.  I looked down at my gas gauge shown in the top right of this photograph.  I grabbed my camera and collected this image.

The tank that had plenty of gas before I left Texas, was registering "empty."  It's as if my van had a leak in the tank or something.  Was there a gas-guzzling demon attached to my vehicle?

I knew from experience that the position of that yellow arrow on the red lines of my gas gauge meant I was running on vapors.  I began to pray.  "Oh Lord, here I am again.  Please have mercy on my stupidity."  When I had looked at that gauge earlier,  for a split second, I thought of filling up.  Then I reasoned gas was cheaper in Oklahoma. And it appeared as though I had plenty to get me home--or at least to the tollgate.

I'd never witnessed a gauge drop in increments like a funnel releasing water.  But I did on Thursday.  I thought about how I could've gotten off at other exits along the way and filled up.  But I'd dismissed the thoughts.  I'm okay.  I've got plenty.  When the gauge needle hit "E", I realized that the gas before me was a long way off.  I wondered why hadn't I heeded my own urgings to get off and get gas.  Why did I insist on waiting?

God is always teaching me some truth.  I was running on empty--not a common occurence with me.  I usually fill up at a quarter of a tank.  Thursday I tested the "waters" so to speak.  When I reached the gas station and filled-up my tank, it registered a bit over 25 gallons.  My husband said, that was the size of the tank.  So, to me, God had mercy on my dismissal of refilling my tank.  He provided.

"Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water."  So they filled them up to the brim."(John 2:7)

As we begin our day with the Lord, it's important to fill up before we start out on our journey.  It's best to fill up to the brim.  His Water is living; it never runs out.  We may think it is best to wait for a cheaper price--another way, a more convenient time. We may think it's not necessary to exit our situation and stop along the way for few extra gallons to make it to our destination.  When we even suspect we're in danger of running out of fuel...it's best to stop then and there and top off our tanks.  We never know what traffic jams we'll face as we travel.  And there may be a time when vapors won't make the grade of the hill before us.  [copyrighted, selahV, 2007]

CHERISH THE THOUGHT!

As winter gets more like winter, and cold gets colder, I think back on July of last summer.  Haylee and I were snapping pictures of my sunflowers.  Some of those flowers jumped up 9 feet high.  They could have been taller but we had a drought.

An interesting thing happened with the growth of those stately sunflowers.  They wouldn't turn around.  They faced Eastward--staring at my neighbor's yards.  The only way I could take pictures of them was to go over to my neighbor's yard; otherwise all I viewed was the backs.

As it happens, sunflowers have this "thing" inside their stalks, up near the blossom.  As they grow, they turn their heads from east to west during the day.  But as dusk bears down, they turn their heads back east.  My sunflowers never did turn their heads.  They began facing east and steadfastly faced east till they drooped their dried heads and died.

As I think of these flowers, I see a parallel to my life.  Once I was saved as a Christian, I faced the "east"--toward my Savior, and turned from the "west" of my ways.  Each day as I go through the sunshine or rain of a day, I can easily get turned all around.  But as the sun sets, it's best that I rest in the Eastern Sky for my strength.  Oh that I could be as steadfast as last summer's sunflowers and never turn away from my Lord.

God is so faithful to bring me hope, restoration and contentment when I seek His Son.  When I get turning and spinning, the Lord gently guides me, and brings me back to face Him in the end.  May He kiss your winter day with the joy of His SON-flower today and you "cherish the thought" in your heart.  SelahV [copyrighted,selahv,2007]