The Sad Love Story.

                                                                        
A  long time ago in a faraway Kingdom, the brothers and the sisters would wake-up excited for Sunday school, and looking forward to have lunch together after the preaching. Their biggest problem was to find the best building they could afford. But that was a long time ago...

Now, the struggle is to sit down in the same place with "such and such", and when the Lord's supper comes, if  they could still feel the Spirit speaking, they would miss those and the others, and would look around and weep over the empty pews and empty hearts.

I knew that time well myself and still  remember, just around Easter, the flowered skirts and dresses and the men in their Sunday's best getting together in a musty basement, rugs ripped, carpets stained, chairs mismatched ....but that was us, and in that humble setting I got saved, I was born again.

I  knew the days when the pastor was the uppermost authority. People trusted him, and he loved them. And I was the new convert older people prayed for. We were so pure and didnt even know. We sang older hymns and newer songs of worship, never knowing that amidst that ugliest building was a gloriously beautiful bride: us!

But, somewhere along the way we got bigger in numbers and smaller in heart. We got comfortable with better settings and uncomfortable with one another. And then everyone left and some remained, and the others who left went here and there and never found a home for them. And the remaining ones never missed them either...never looked around and wept  for the time of innocence and glory,  never cried out for the brothers and sisters that once were and now no more.

And so the hearts got even colder, and the eyes turned to marble floors and wood treatments, to anything that could numb the unknown pain of the vanishing Splendor and missing siblings. We will manage the building, we will manage the money, we will occupy ourselves...

And so we got comfortable with having and managing everything and uncomfortable with being managed and hearing anything...and that's how we let him go, our pastor...first in our hearts, then in our whispers, eventually it was done.

To be continued...

The Gift

The gift to humanity came in the form of a helpless newborn baby. The redeemer of mankind laying on some linen sheets and lambskin blankets desperately needing his mom's warmth and milk to maybe make it through the first few months..
A human baby! Could anything be more vulnerable? No vaccinations or hospitals, no disposable diapers or electric heat. If left alone for more than a few hours he certainly would be the victim of  increment weather or of an animal attack. The great messiah, totally dependent on other humans for his own survival.
The savior of souls was after all just another mouth to feed. If not another burden, for sure another bundle to carry, another worry on top of many, another difficult thing to explain.
How many of those come our way?
We expected compassion, instead judgement is what comes our way.
We expected commitment, instead we get a divorce letter from a cheating spouse.
We expected a retirement party, instead we get a pink slip.
How many of those come our way, again and again?
Can we ever say that the bad is now over, and that we will now live happily forevermore?
Was it even possible to imagine that the soft trembling hands in the manger would be the rough trembling hands in the cross?
Could we ever conceive the idea that the gift of blood poured and flesh torn would cause sorrow in hell and joy in heaven? Shouldn't it be the other way around, at least in our natural minds?
From the time the earthly lamb was cut to cover Adam and Eve's shame, to time the heavenly lamb was crushed to cover mine and yours shame...Can we look passed the thousands of years in between? Can we look passed the years between the receiving blankets and the ripped veils of the temple?
Can we look past the ugly wrapping paper of a divorce letter and see the beautiful gift of freedom to serve the Lord in a bigger capacity?
Can we really only see the here and now, can we give it some time?
Do I have the courage to once and for all FULLY unwrap in my life, in my soul the gift offered to me 2011 years ago? Do you?

The Danbury Pastor

The task of a pastor is a hard one. If you kill the wolf you risk killing the sheep, I think all they can do, is to feed and water and clean the sheep…but the wolf then will go out and feed on self justice and drink on hatred or ungodly mercy and so the job of a pastor is a tedious and long one.


This is true to my life, and now I look back this last years, ten or so, and a big smile crosses my face…but my eyes are teary. I feel like you have made me, but I’m kidding I know you showed me to the One, my Maker. And though I walked away I never escaped the teachings of Jesus you so patiently taught me. I followed the pastor from a distance, and you did the same to me, I know. You are a cross congregational caregiver and lover of many souls. You care not for titles or labels good or bad ones given to others or to you. Of all the Bible books and lessons on Sunday classes that we studied, you are the one. The living lesson of freedom, love and ethic. You do not suffer with the incessant sting of hearts that refuse to flourish. You just don’t. You do not despair with the minimalist ones, short of everything beautiful and grandiose yet abundant on everything “ oldmanish “

And you love them, you just can’t take revenge, can’t change your course, can’t re-learn to be worldly. So, as some say: You are what you eat! I think after drinking and eating from the Word for so long it’s now what you are.

Augusto Cury would say that you are free from the “tyranny of the response”

You have no affiliations with evil, you travel “Light”

And now, this is my point: I think I am finding myself enlightened, drenched in the same freedom to love and the same peace to be and to go on, that you have. I think that I am knowing this revelation but by the Holy Spirit and am even short of words to explain this love you have for others, for believers that hurt and don’t change, that sin and don’t even repent, but you worry and care about them…and having detested that about you, having come from the darkness I came from, and having waited impatiently for your patience with “them” to run thin and for words out of your mouth that would hopefully hurt “them” and never seeing that day, it finally made a trick on me. To my dismay I have found myself infected with the same celestial virus, the freedom to fully follow Jesus that you have. You have made a disciple out of me.

The Bad Planner and the Hidden Agendas

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11

I didn’t plan my day well. After more than 10 years I failed to foresee problems when putting my instrument back to work after being idled for 3 weeks. So I had my nice earrings, nice linen dress, hair done and all while on my knees on the dusty floor of the ICP lab hooking and unhooking cables to and from the instrument.

It was then that I started thinking that my manager didn’t plan very well either. Panicking that making the instrument functional would be too advanced for my knowledge, she called the service engineer for Thermo, only to find out that she forgot to renew the service contract sent to her 6 weeks ago! Now the instrument was down and us out of luck. When she nearly ran out of my lab to put her paperwork in order I had some peace to diagnose the instrument’s symptoms and got it fixed!!! ALL BY MYSELF!!!!

It was then that I started thinking that I didn’t plan (really plan) my life either. I didn’t plan to become a career woman who comes to work wearing dresses and perfume but works like a man, a spectroscopic engineer using tools and chemicals and computers on dirty floors, while colleagues walk in and out of my lab; but now I like it!

I didn’t plan on becoming a divorced grandma at 40 something and to be on my granddaughter’s bedroom cradling her on my arms at 2am, and pampering her and her mom with my love and post promotion BLESSED income; but now I like it!

No I didn’t have a plan...I didn’t know or failed to get informed when I was younger that plans are necessary and that most people have one, even for other people’s lives.

A jealous friend’s plan for your life is that things don’t go accordingly, at least once…

A salesman’s plan for your life is that you buy, not just once…

A drug dealer’s plan for your life is not necessarily to destroy it, but to make you into a dependent, hopefully a big one…

A devil’s plan for your life is that you may never know God thus never knowing God’s plan for you.

It was then that I started thinking about God's plans.

Because God’s plans are to prosper and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future! I suddenly received this Word in my heart again, but so deeply and as suddenly as I received it, I realized that for me to be a true expression of God’s love, I must have this same PLAN for all the people around me, that they have peace and not harm, so that they may have a hope and a future. God indeed is Great!

To My Friend

I am “beauty” that God created.

I fit so perfectly against white clouds and blue skies

Underneath aromatic orange trees

Surrounded by crystal like buzzing bees


I am “beauty” that God created and I cannot forget.

I fit so perfectly against golden afternoons

Bathed on  red bloody suns

In each, we can hear the sounds of laughter or sobbing whispers

I’m emotion, I’m music, I’m life He holds dear


I’ve seen dying and losing one we held, a loved one

I’ve seen “borning” and gaining one we already held waiting for, a loved one


I’ve seen divisions and heard fighting voices

That got somber and cold

Not cold, icy and sharp as nails

There would be no musical note

On a Sheppard Scale


I’ve seen walking away

The distance gaining

The draft of doors closing

Without warm embraces and farewells

And smily hellos fading, when all wasn’t well


I’ve seen the labels

And what they can do

And to war against them

Some label others too


I’ve seen how delicate

We all really are

A mix of soft tissues

In a breakable frame

Like little fleeting bugs against a windshield

None stands a chance

And so all we are, have and hold

Can be gone without notice out cold


I’ve seen the opinions and the dissatisfaction

And if you ask me why, I will say:

Because from God’s love, one can walk away

One can forget his beauty, so his beauty walks away


But not us

We’re droplets of oil sprinkled by pierced hands

We’re God’s little love notes or big love letters

To humanity

We’re beauty that God created, all of us

Including them and thee



My Pastor's Stubbornness.

For years I openly voiced my question: why would my pastor remain in a church governed by members and votes and assemblies? Why follow a church method so seemingly obsolete and unfruitful, if not painful to watch the endless discussions over small issues and votes over the most simplistic decisions? His life without a shadow of doubt would be sooooo much easier if he was in a church where he could make a decision and just move forward with that.

But now, after ten years or so, of subtracting instead of adding forces with him, of criticizing instead of understanding, I finally "got it" : My pastor simply wont deviate from the Bible. He can be laughed at, mocked, criticized, pushed in every way, he can tolerate tremendous pressure from friends and family alike, yet his deal is with God and he wont go for anything not Biblical... I think one of his goals in life as a pastor is to keep the Biblical teachings and standards unadulterated and unchanged in the churches he tends to.

See, for years I criticised traditional Baptists, my view of them was an arrogant religious people, till this weekend when I was called one....LOL... I was called a mindless, ignorant fool because in the interest of decorum I voiced my opinion against a church having a mechanical bull for ladies to ride on it, along with worldly music and dancing on their temple. So, to make a long story short, a young man, offended with my opinion, among other things told me to shove my degrees up my (you know what) ...

I thanked God for that, because now I know how painful it is to be labeled a religious person for just voicing an opinion. So, now after years of ignorance, I finally understand my pastor.
The door to "unbiblical dogmas and methods is one that most never be opened. No one can safely deviate from the Bible, no matter how Godly the intentions of the heart really are.

I now understand his pain, his frustrations on trying to make revivalists and traditionalists see eye to eye, on hoping some day they're able to offer God's worship and service in love and fellowship, and to keep walking towards our Christian goal not submerged in criticism and pride.

John 17: 20
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Ladies Evening With The King

The Last Ride

                                                                       
For He says: "In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you."* Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. NKJV 2Cr 6:2

Yesterday I took the day off. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and hazy, a slow hot Tuesday. By noon I decided to go to Marshalls. Nice to be inside an air conditioned department store buying little things like soap and lotion. Little things that make you feel so good but wont break the bank. On my way to Marshalls a funeral....Who was this mysterious person that was being buried on a hot day with just 4 or so cars following the hearse?

When I was young I would look at the obituary section of the paper (every time) and I would be terrified but mesmerized by the array of names and ages of complete strangers that I never even knew existed, but now know they didn't exist anymore...

Would the few numbers of cars following the hearse be a sign that the person died very short of survivors or very short of loved ones?

Would that last ride be to the celestial mansions on the Father's Estates or to the worst, most treacherous, scary, filthy, dark, sad, inescapable ghetto more known as "HELL"?

Was it someone that in life bent his knees on hot summer afternoons to speak with the Father, or was it someone that spent his summer evenings in bars while his family wondered where he was?

Was it a mom that set her kitchen table nicely for her family and knew they were special gifts from heaven, or a mom whose own kids were invisible to her and was too busy with her gossiping friends, latest lipstick color and worldly affairs?

Was it a dad, a business man, very involved with his financial life, pretty secretaries and golf friends, or a Daddy that put his kid to bed every night with little kisses, sweet bedtime stories and prayers?

Was it someone whose soul was full of grace, love and forgiveness from Jesus, light and airy as heaven, or whose soul was heavy with sins, hatred, pride and unforgiving, as heavy as dirt and the spaces below?

GODCIDE

                                                                            

I think of mine and I think of humanities crimes against God. What are my reasons? What would I say facing the judge?


• I lived for too many years in the world.

• I was just a regular worldly person till 10 years ago, neither me, nor my parents or grandparents, great grandparents and actually no one knew Him, we got saved in a 2 year span and have no biblical roots.

• I tried.

I did live too many years away from Him, not knowing His way, and not knowing that He lives. And now I feel His attempts on my heart. Now it hurts me when I hurt Him. I feel He wishes one thousand from me and I only come up with one cent and trembling hands. My smallness is embarrassing and unescaping.

My spirit needs desperately a more excellent way and at the same time I feel chained to this brutal force called flesh. At the same time that I love His perfect love I keep on hating. I have more deaths on my back than most serial killers in the end of their careers. I top all of them easily. And He keeps on grabbing on insisting on expecting, He invested everything on "me" and I keep on disappointing Him, on needing salvation from my old ways.

Just like Adam and Eve hid, I hide too. I hide on the Law, I hide on psychology, I hide on simplistically being just a human being. I hide on self preservation.

And others will keep on going with their rituals. And even others will keep on going denying that He exists and that He is God. And you know why? Because it is so hard! Because they don’t want to be like Him, so if He doesn’t exist they can just be left alone to be what they are and to be what they like to be, and to be what they know how to be: F L E S H.

So great and so brutal are mine and humanities crimes committed against God, that I don’t want to rip off my vests but my mind. Free me please from the death of this body, Holy Spirit! Free me please Holy Spirit from any genetic association that I have with my own species.

Thank God I didn’t  just turn into one of those incense burners, or into a rosary repeater, or into one of them that lit candles and say mantras, and wear all white or black or all orange, and shave their heads, and eat just veagan, and perform complicated rituals? That is all so easy, it all exalts the flesh. And they can't see, what I see now.

But instead I chose the Word or the Word chose me, as they say, and the Word speaks to my inner core even with my Bible closed, even in the height of my anger, in the midweek a thousand miles away from church sermons, the Word keeps on living. The Word is not restricted to the exact color candle or animal type blood or exact day of the week for rituals or readings.
The Word is not under any formality or procedure designed by humans on futile attempts to BE something when only He IS everything . The Word is the only One that physically, spiritually, visibly, precisely, infinetely, and in every step condemned and destroyed flesh. The Word cant be shut, can be killed though to this day they keep on trying. And the Word cries for the multitude of my crimes, our crimes against Him and against His creation.


The Word is the One and only way. The Word is God. The Word is Love.

THE MUSIC OF GOD

The music of God came to me

As I turned around the curve

And found the ghostly shadow

Of a tattered banner still hanging high

But silent and grey and frozen and faded

Not flying full of hope against the sky

No; a lonely bird that no longer can fly

And that’s when and why

My eyes filled with tears

And all my strength left me

Like an army of trembling hands

Like an army of wobbly knees

I knew how big was this defeat

And that’s when I wished to die

I simply wished to cease to be

I did not wish to see

The others marching by

To their captivity

I did not wish to hear

The enemy’s armies’ shouts of victory

And as I died in little bits

The music of God came to me

And ever so softly

Wrapped my thorn from war body

In a blanket of gentle words

A symphony

That spoke of flowers blooming and children laughing

That smelled like the fresh sunny meadows

By the sea

Not like gunpowder and human waste

And misery

Like a little baby

I let the music to rock me

It picked me up from the battleground

In this blanket of soft words

And sweet sounds

Erasing the stains of blood

Washing me

They are “seeds of new life” they sang to me

And I allowed

The music of God

To put my parts back together

For they were all over and I scared

I was like that banner all tattered

And I let the colors

No longer grey

To lullaby me to sleep and rest

Even with my failed tests

And enormous defeat

And to say the least

I let the music of God

Simply to love me

Worship and Bible Study - All Nations Baptist Church, Danbury, CT 03-20-2011 11:45am - AmericanTowns.com

Worship and Bible Study - All Nations Baptist Church, Danbury, CT 03-20-2011 11:45am - AmericanTowns.com

wheat and chaff

I don't even know when I became a "woman of prayer" it was just suddenly as suddenly as how the first day of spring (not the calendar one) pops up breaking the rigorous disciplines of winter....you open the door bracing for the cold air and it's w a r m  and  b r e e z y.

I only know that this specific night I took enough NyQuil to kill a turkey (LOL) I was really sick and I just cant fall asleep if my nose is stuffy breathing through my mouth is not an option ...awake until maybe midnight I kept praying for my dear ones Antonio Arelis Miguel Ceu Nick Mom Simone Angelica Wanda Luana and Preethan and myself. Every time I prayed I was certain that in the end I would just fall asleep, it didn't happen. Instead I felt this sadness building up, these tears hot and fierce inside my heart. But I wasn't going to let them out.

Images of my mom's straight and long black hair dancing around her waist, her body so shapely in the blue and white polka dot halter top dress with a big red heart on the chest, that she herself made (made one for me and another for Eliane too) She was like a tiny Japanese looking doll, holding me by one child like hand and Eliane by the other as she walked us everyday in our way to and from school. On the road, along cat calls a small procession of cars and lots of honking didn't do anything for her (she knew she was beautiful but her heart belonged to daddy and to us, her kids) but that too passed one day...

Her sweet features kept playing in my mind only interrupted by another, that of Ceu's newborn baby crying with her pinkish face and tiny helpless delicate body...I have seen Ceu's beginning ....mom's best days, and now this little pink baby too... I'm getting old and seen so much...and so much will also pass...

Jesus warned us: life is like a vapor...so is beauty, and everything truly passes but His Words. So weird how now is already 4AM and here I am, entertained by old and new images and tears I could not restrain anymore, the Holy Spirit visited me and my room was in glory, sleeping was no longer an option, so I continued paying...but now was not just Ceu's new baby images in my mind, but it was humanity's newborns and humanity's helpless older bodies and different people and the sick and the emotions that come and go, and pretty faces and sad ones, and tears rolled.

The instability of things! How delicate and helpless not just newborns, life. Life is just so filled with uncertainty, new life and old life and in between alike. Life walks alongside with death. Is life filled with death, and in death there is life??? And then Joana my beautiful friend and the other short lady from church that would not pray for her to get healed but would pray for God to take her ... Wheat and chaff, brilliancy and idiocy, life and death and uncertainty...Yes thanks be to Him that life is like a vapor but Eternal Life is in His Presence. Anything else would be unbearable.

The Nissan Saleman from Wilton CT.



Liam was a very pleasant young man. After visiting about a dozen dealerships and finding not so nice salespeople, Ceu, my daughter, immediately liked him. He was soft spoken, gentle, really quiet for a salesperson, even gentler than Dr. Taweh, Ceu said, but I disagreed.

I liked him too. He was young but kind of old school. In his desk he had a picture of his new bride. He was a newlywed he told me excitedly “we got married in Hawaii” he continued pointing to the picture of the wedding day in his desk. “When you hit the lotto you don’t ask questions” he said referring to his wife’s beauty.

Everything about Liam was good, but a spark was missing in his eyes…like many people, even in spite of all his new wonderful achievements and blessings, still the Light was missing. His happy words didn’t match a sad tone in his eyes. So silently I prayed for Liam, I told him about Jesus about Gods gift to us…in his gentle voice his response to me was: what would you think of me if I told you I was an atheist? I responded that I would still think he was the sweet and nice person I thought he was.

At home days later I continued to pray for him, on and off, and one day God gave me this revelation:

Liam gets up every morning and takes his shower, he shaves his face and puts his cologne, he brushes his teeth, uses mouth wash, carefully applies mousse to his hair and combs it his way. He looks at himself, then he wraps the bandage around his wound very carefully and very tightly, then he finishes dressing-up and faces the world. Like Liam so many have been wounded deeply. Unfortunately the Only “person” that can heal the hurt, is the one they shut down. A multitude of hurts carefully hidden and bandaged, very carefully protected. Maybe at some point they were exposed just to get hurt even more. This is your world, your neighbors. Masks and bandages carefully put on…A morning ritual all over the world. Hide what is hurting, protect what otherwise maybe vulnerable, and shut Him down.

Why? Because if God truly existed He would not allow me to suffer, or him or her to suffer, and He would not allow this or that to have taken place…if He exists He must not love me because He surely didn’t care to stop the hurt from happening...


Yes He did care! God stopped all the hurt from happening by allowing His only Son to be soooo hurt and sooo crushed for us. God started it all anew in the person of Jesus. If we were only "somewhat" like Him we wouldnt cause the monstruous hurts we hear in the news, we wouldnt even cause the little daily hurts we still do to others.

Based on my own hurts and semi healed scars, I know that I grew spiritually through pains and sorrows and much more through lacks and needs and through my afflictions then through my good times. Standing on my removed bandages I can sincerely say that all my hurts are still infinitely less than those of Jesus, betrayed, savagely beaten, abandoned and hung on a cross to die as a criminal convict, ashamed, humiliated, naked, cold, hungry and thirsty, mocked-at, called names, ridiculed, with nowhere to go and full of His own pain still He cared to minister to the pain of those few mourning for Him. I imagine the cold air, the hours hanging on the cross, hour after hour, one eye shut, His Jewish beard ripped away with force and violence, what if He needed to go to the bathroom, what if insects were crawling on His face and body, skin ripped away, what was left covered in splinters from the rough wood, still His last words were blessed words of Love, sweet words of Forgiveness and Hope.

Jesus' cared for you and for all till His last drop of blood, which was capable to save the whole world. Jesus' last breath was still to comfort. When faced with anguish He didnt take it out on the weaker or on the foolish not even on the meanest one of us, He brough it to the Father...Jesus was sweet and good and a saviour to His last second on earth. Yes He cares for you.

The King of Hearts

                                                                               

God can love so well and so long, He can love forevermore because He is forever. Out of God’s lips no one will ever hear: well, I wasted 10 years of my life loving this person…Because God’s life has no end, He is not limited. We have been tainted by the little years of life we have, and during those few years have to do it right. 10 years or more is too much to waste, 1 maybe too much to waste. We have been scared by our limits and uncertainties…


And this is what took me to seek for something bigger as a teenager. I rebelled against my parents and against all adults. I rebelled against the formal types and the hippies too. All of them with no exceptions were a failure in my eyes. They seemed so loveless and joyless to me. They never enjoyed anything. They never enjoyed the money they worked so hard for. They were incapable of loving the person they vowed to love. Much of their love ended in hate and the children they produced among loving words and whispers of passion, were also barely loved…one resemblance of traits they didn’t care for …love could cool…

I vowed to never be like them. I vowed to do everything differently. But I too without even knowing was already becoming one of them. Too busy dating and trying to find a school that could hold me trough the uncertainties of Brazil’s economic situation in the 80s. My life was already shrinking around myself.

I wondered about love…how can someone for their entire lives just love the 4 or 5 in their households and then barely…in my juvenile eyes even the love they dedicated to their parents was a love undressed of joy. It was more like an “obligated too, irritated by you, love I still give”

I vowed to never ever follow failed models, my own models and the general public models given to us through history. But before I knew I was thinking of baby names and though I did everything opposite to what they did, and though I vowed to love more and love better and love further and love harder and to love longer, and to also love in numbers and quality, I too failed. I knew that…I knew that I too didn’t know how to love, didn’t know if I truly loved who I once claimed too and now really seemed to hate…

I laughed at myself and wondered if there was a guide a step by step guide on how to really, for real give substantial love. Something like an Idiots Guide to Real Love. I needed one soon. I imagined that my parents like myself were too caught in this rebelling against their parents when they were young, but their parents also had no fault, no clue. We all rebel against becoming another failed model. But no good model was available to my knowledge.

Yes there were songs of love, of broken hearted people with cheating lovers, of happy people in love, of immigrants missing the nation they so much loved. But in my eyes this too was limiting stuff…how can you only love your lover, your country, your children? This tiny life seemed like a waste of time. Mine was one unexpecting life. Weak models of love, fiery words of passion that usually ended in a cold or bored bed. Really foolish and pointless. Love that ends in hate, passion that ends without compassion, usually in bitterness. The love of humans is not what I admired, but there was no escaping.
Then my “Idiot’s Guide to Love” came through one day.

1000000000000000000000000000 to the N to the N to the N to the N and N volts incomparable to it…a Light that could fill all the dark holes of the universe known and unknown. A warmth that expressed Everything, everything that is safe and good, and life and purpose, and L O V E real love gentle and pure and exciting so much like my first bike ride on my own, and the summers of my childhood, and grandma’s Aracy “cozido” with bananas and corn and the rice to go along, and like her cuscus too, and like the first time I’ve seen puppies and held one, like seeing grandma Julia beautifying herself with a dab of perfume a hat and pearls, like looking at my mom’s closet and wondering at all the silks and scarves and chains and heels…would I ever measure up to her model of lady and mom?

…a new Universe was before me, just like when in Buzios we saw all the baby fish in the seashore by the millions…like when you’re confronted with so much life and the helplessness of the possibility of the loss of it all…like when they handled Ceu to me, wet with blood and placenta and I was so mesmerized and afraid that she would slip from my arms and die on her very first day of life…so I draped her in my hospital gown but never felt safe since that day, just like when the kitchen starts to fill the whole house with the smell of cake and you know at any minute now pleasure is near, like the smell of the earth just before a heavy rain, like the humming of bees by the Jaboticaba trees and you know even the worst humming wont keep you away…I was before a new Universe.

One that would take me by the hand step by step. A Christ in me, me in Him. A Christ to save me from my unexpeting life. A Christ to save me from when life turns 40 or 60 or more years of death. A Christ to expand my borders my love limits my love knowledge. A Christ to save me from my ugly criminal self, my unloving heart.

My Idiots Guide to Love came in the form of a deformed person, a man hanging on a cross…Is it even possible, love like this? Love that can give it all endlessly and hopefully.

Is it possible, to kill Death and Hate and Hell by dying? My heart trembles and makes my whole body shake…

I was before a new Universe…the love I so much searched and doubted and questioned and wondered for, was here, in the form of what was left from a man hanging on this cross wet and covered by His own blood…Somehow I thought of Jan 1st my baby, wet, spotted by my own blood…it is funny how our minds react to when the Truth is finally put before us… Love like this made me feel so small, so small that I wished to disappear, to vanish for sometime or forever in my tremendous smallness…

A Christ to save me from much more than I even knew I needed saving, I knew nothing of hell and nothing of my own sinful condition, I knew nothing even of the condemnation hanging over my head, my days counted…

How foolish. I knew nothing of my final destination. The most unloving and fickle people I knew in earth seemed like merciful angels before what exists in hell…how common and unkind of me to always be criticizing people.

I never even knew I was coming to Him looking for the perfect Love and found perfect Eternal Life, an escape from hell…

I was lucky or better yet Blessed, I was before a whole and Holy new Universe ruled by the King of Heaven, the King of Real Hearts the King of Eternity, the King of Love and Charity, Eternally Strong and Just and Whole and Perfect, the King of me.

It Is So Complicated

My God,

Sometimes I forget He can do it ALL...but, looking at the cross I'm quickly reminded that I, not Him, am small.
I tend to concentrate on the beauty that I can see and He created, and forget that He has made much more than I even know to exist...for I only know a few things they insisted in teaching me from books and lessons, but the whole of God's creation doesn't fit in classrooms.

He has spoken the most precious orchids that blush with so many stares but with the same breath He created the weeds on the side of the road that no one cares.

When I see farms, plantations that can feed big cities, I forget that underneath the earth, in her secret womb, a little seed dies alone, and no one sees; and that also is His.

Having Him as my God, I sometimes forget that I'm a dust particle so tiny, and He not I, is the One so Mighty.

I want to tame the wind, to build a tower, to calm the seas, to forever shelter my child...and I keep forgetting that life is just a while. I want to create a new story and better nights for her tomorrows...I keep forgetting... that, already has been done through all His sorrows...

I can hear lovely sounds of laughter and joy's pretty scented colors, but cannot forget there are sounds of darkness, silences and horrors...

I've seen the good among His creatures, and failed to accept their faults as built-in-sin features. I have hated the evil ones among the nations and failed to admit He loves all in His creation.

I tend to fool myself that the world is my church my dear Christian family, I wish to forget the wars, the
pestilence and famine.

My God,

Why everything is so big, so complicated. I so much wish they had obeyed.

The Biggest SALESMAN in the Universe

The biggest sales “mogul” ever…Yes he has been from generation to generation the best one in sales. With a business that has quickly reached global markets, incalculable number of unhappy customers, he has brought his market shares and stocks higher than any other corporation giant, even in recession times, with colossal earnings.

The incalculable profit that Mr S.O.S (Satan-the Old Serpent)  cash-cow businesses generates cannot be evaluated at all because he has “ZERO” overhead expenses, the raw material is free, in fact it wasn’t paid for nor generated by him. Not only he operates free of expenditures, but also he sells a product that is completely void of value. As a matter of fact all that this genius sells are tiny ideas. Once the consumer entertains the idea or ideas, these will grow to become more rooted in, more like a strong opinion, and from strong opinion to becoming one’s core value is just a matter of time.

Some of his core business top selling “goods” that spread through the world giving him control of the markets are:

#1- The MCFA “Man Came From Amoeba“…it is amazing how quickly this product sold and how fast people bought and buy it still ,everyday, without consulting or even thinking. In my analyses of the market for this product, I understood it gives people a sense that hey are highly intellectualized.

#2- The GIFT “ God Is a Fairy Tale” also got market's total acceptance, surprisingly especially among more educated customers.

#3- The DDE “ Devil Doesn’t Exist” is actually his number one product, which is also the one that gave him the original footprint and expansion on global markets.

#4- HELL “Heaven Entitled and Living at Large“, a type of heaven for all, mathematical impossibility that somehow has worked for him for all this years. This product is the combination of products 1, 2 and 3, the unsolvable equation: although I came from an amoeba and God and devil both don’t exist, there is a “heaven” prepared by (God even though he doesn’t exist or maybe aliens or maybe my amoeba antecessors) for everybody, when they die.

Among some of his non-core products we will find that he has diversified in other much smaller business units that nevertheless cause a tremendous impact on the world market, like: alcohol, drugs, prostitution, greed, wars, adultery, self-centeredness, envy and minor “idea-like” distortions of the truth, all very similar in nature such as: nobody loves me, nobody cares for me, I’m too fat, I’m too old, I’m too sick, I’m too stupid, it’s too late for me, the woman next door is better than my wife, the guy next door is better than my husband, and so far so on…

A Blanket of Sorrows

Tonight pastor Ophir preached about impatience and anxiety...He preached about being able to leave things in the hands and care of God, of doing what we can while waiting on God to do what we cannot. He talked about the difference between patience and procrastination...

The message was trully for me...the most ridiculous part is that when pastor Ophir called people that suffered with those "ailments", I couldnt even bring myselft to go...I was glued to my chair...how sad.

I never knew such anxiety like today...Earlier in the day I went grocery shopping at the Foodmart on Main st. I saw this man with a shopping cart practically empty. The worried and sad shadow around him caught my attention. We hit the meat section at the same time....he picked different meat packages discretly checked the price and put it all back...I pretended not to see...just to feel  immense sadness later ...I wanted to help with money, but was too afraid to offend or embarass him.

"Oh God what will be of the world when the seals are open?" Oh I was wrapped in a blanket of sorrows...

The pouring on God's ears continued ....."Oh God come back quickly...why dont You? ....why didnt You yet?.....if You dont come back soon...if You dont answer the prayers of your saints.... what will be of us? Please God don't let us down. Oh hear us God, have mercy on your people and come already"

My heart got out of sinc. Later when I drove to church I was even worse, worrying about saints and sinners. REV 6:6 popped in my mind: Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart* of wheat for a day's wages,* and three quarts of barley for a day's wages,* and do not damage the oil and the wine!” Poverty, hunger and misery, I've seen them ugly faces already, but today everywhere I looked I saw it. Is it the signs?

So I can say for sure that pastor Ophir knew what was in the heart of many in his flock because when he made the call, so many people came up, except me....

I WON THE LOTTO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I won the lottery, and I won B I G. I didn’t just win the Lotto, I won the Powerball. That is God’s Powerball. When I accepted Christ I had no idea that I was becoming one of the richest women in the world. My fortune, now, is so incalculable that I still don’t have a clear knowledge of how much I do really have. Before I owed, now I own.

What do I own? What is my fortune? I own a Brother and a Father, the Son of Man and the Son of God; I own a life that will go through eternity; I own a love that cannot be quenched, the more it’s given the more it’s filled forever and ever; I own forgiveness including my own; death and hell cannot hold me down, I own an open heart; I own a genuine desire to know people instead of the previous desire to not be bothered with them; I see God in His created beings and His love for people compels me towards them; I own the possibility/ability to heal and to raise the dead; I own the possibility/ability to see and perform wonders and miracles; I own joy that cannot be counted; I own a richness of feelings and happiness and unknown sentiments that bring me much more peace and this feeling (hasn’t been named yet) is not just grace not just joy, it’s more than peace, so whatever the name is for this safe and mature feeling a happy assurance, I own that, but all because I am a Christian. And this is the richness that excels any worldly lottery premium even all of the premiums in the world combined.

If you ever realize you won the G-Powerball, you will cry in thankfulness…maybe you will see a tree and be taken with it’s simple beauty and practical purpose…that God created. Or driving home from work suddenly you’ll be so aware of everyday “gifts” like a black bird crossing the view of your windshield or a flower being blown by the wind… that He created. The sky when it is a certain navy-blue-marine hue right around 7:45 pm my favorite color for skies, I see it and appreciate it deeply…that which God created for us, and though many barely notice, I do and appreciate it, so I say to God: I see it God, it is simply breath taking and totally
B - E - A - U - T - I - F - U – L, thank you!

His beautiful and simple things render me to tears. When He created them He smiled and said that it was good…the Bible does not say of anyone else, at that moment, saying: Oh it is beautiful God, the earth, this thing called man, the other thing called woman, all this clouds and the separation you made between the waters of above and the ones of below it is just stunning! I wish I was there to do it. So now that I won the G-Powerball and don’t have to run like a maniac after the things of the world, I have my eyes and my time to appreciate His things and the things I own through Him. I am rich thanks be to Him.

The Perfect Job

Get up honey…it is time to get up…that’s how God woke me up today! Isn’t that amazing? More than amazing, it was lovely, singular. I have never been awakened in the morning by God before…I laid in my bed with a big smile on my face…then in my mind I imagined an ending for the sentence: it is time to get up and take the world for my kingdom.


The smile turned to a cackle, “take on the world” ha ha ha …but, you know what? I can…as a matter of fact; I’ll apply for the job. I am part of His family. I already know the Boss.. He said that “we” (me included) would do miracles and wonders and would heal the sick and raise the dead. He doesn’t lie, that means I can do this job.

If you decide to take the job as well, you will feel like you were born again..

Think about the pluses:
no age limitations
no gender restrictions
just one book to study
no glass ceiling
the pay is not commensurate with experience but with the willingness to do the job
the human resources department is heavenly.

Sure there are some minuses:
it’s a 24hr a day job
no vacations
no retirement
quitting is a big no-no

But, I tell you, it is a job to die for.

The New Dictionary Of Modern Issues

NATIONAL ALZHEIMERS: Ex: My father and many others risked and lost their lives fighting the communists in 1964 in Brazil, today, 46 years later the communists are back as presidential candidates.

MAXIMIZING PROFITS:  A modern day event, where American families after having lost thousands of thousands of loved ones in the war against communism….are now loosing jobs by thousands of thousands because those are been sent to communist Godless China.

SCHOOL: A place where kids get shot, gang-raped and bullied by other kids.

CABLE TV: an expensive luxury, that teaches the new generation to drink, abuse sex and drugs, disobey God and abandon family values.

CABLE TV WATCHERS: future welfare recipients.

CHURCH LOVE: The act of accepting divorce, not pushing for tithes, and proclaiming a rule-less God that will accept just about anything from even old believers, so long He is loved and worshipped

HATER: Anyone that preaches that God hates sin, that God is not a needy nagging being, that God doesn’t “need” to be loved or worshipped by any of us, and that God is the very opposite of lawlessness.

PARENTING: Accepting sin and err in our kid's lives, exchanging clothing with them and being their best-friend, ever, some even go to the extent of presenting their kids with alcohool and drugs.

TO FIND SELF: Any activity where parents abandon their children, and spouses walk from their vows, in the pursuit of finding reasons to live.


COOL: to be 49 and dress like a teen.
 
NOT SUCH A BIG DEAL: to have an affair, to show your boobs, to hold an artistic job such as a naked dancer, to lie in an effort to comfort someone.

ANOTHER PLANET: A light years away world, where people kept their word and took responsibility no matter what; where women and men were soldiers who fought for the family, and kept their end of the bargain. A world where men looked like men, and women looked like women. A world where the old and sick where taken care of at home, and didn’t die in the arms of strangers. A world where young people respected their elders and their elder were respectable.

But thanks be to God who says in 1Pe 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

We must raise in santification and faith against our present age.