EAT PRAY LOVE

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE ~ and Julia Roberts plays the role of a woman who seeks to understand her resistance to being ALONE, and intimate with GOD, not a man. As a spiney porcupine, my need to be close, to connect with people, and with God has had its good and bad points! OUCH! In July it was a wise choice to go to Silver Lake and huddle with the Cloos Clan! In the freeze that delights all valley girls, in the middle of July, up high in the Sierra's ~ a great shared HOPE is that we will need socks, blankets, hats, gloves and the warmth of friends around a bonding fire. We hurry and scurry up the hill to gather together ~ to come to a close huddle and enjoy the warm feelings of love. Like porcupines, we are ever so careful, oh so intentional to let our quills relax, to be laid back, and just hang as One under the stars, and in the Son. At this age, I am yet a student of love. My learning curve in relating to others without hurting, or poking a tender heart is like a long winding mountain curve without a safety edge. My regret is that my quick judgement was harsh. God's Word for me today: "Without passing judgment on disputable matters." On matters that are non-essential in God's eyes. "One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him." Romans 14:1 ~ MY LESSON: Love others as you are loved, with plenty of GRACE! As a child I poked fun, and I pricked my parents occasionally on purpose. We need to connect with God, and He created us with a need to associate with others, to reach out and touch others, and be willing to be pricked, and love them anyway! Today a song was sung while video images of a young girl flashed on the church big screen. The lyrics were "have you seen her, the lost girl, the one with a past, the one we all look past, the one we dismiss, the one we rush by, have you seen her tears, have you heard her cry? She is done with lying, she just wants to get close, but she thinks nobody knows, that she did not mean to hurt anyone in her quest for love." We are convicted to pass her the gift of GRACE. "Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me" Ephesians 3:8We yearn for intimacy and God knows our hearts for He created us and implanted a need in us to be intimate. God used a stranger to speak this truth to me this week. "Love is a gift from God." Such a gift is to be received with grace and gratitude. Therefore; "I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Ephesians 3:16 ~ His love is as pure as it has ever been.

Song of Solomon 2:2 Lover
Like a lily among thorns
is my darling among the maidens.
Beloved
Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest
is my lover among the young men.
I delight to sit in his shade,
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
He has taken me to the banquet hall,
and his banner over me is love.
Strengthen me with raisins,
refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.
"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called." Ephesians 4 ~ Forgiven, redeemed, justified, and assured that I am who He created me to be ~ lovely in His sight, and open to His surprising, unsurpassed, undeserved love! IN the FLIGHT of LIFE we NEED constant correction to land safely! God's WORD for me to EAT, PRAY and LOVE today. 1 Corinthians 1:19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ~ I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ~ We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ."