Our Blog is inspired by The Holy Spirit.
We are using the Optional Memorial of Saint Apollinaris, bishop and martyr
The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
Beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
With your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
Forever. Psalm 23
I know all of you know of or know this Psalm, King David wrote it and it is as important to us today as it applied to King David during his lifetime.
Three years ago, I, we, decided to learn this psalm and say it daily. As we go through each section, I find comfort and Peace.
Why?
With the Lord as my shepherd, I don’t fear the “world” and what the world can heap upon me. God will give me the strength to deal with any difficulties life can present.
I am finding the waters restful, and my soul is refreshed by not being concerned with the cares of the world. I, we, have turned off the news; I try every day to stay in the Peace of the Holy Spirit.
Right now, we are caught up in inflation. I remember years ago when the interest rates for a new house exceeded 10%, when savings and loan banks went under the economy tanked, and many businesses failed. I remember when Polio hit, and we were shown pictures of people in iron lungs, and we were scared we would get this horrible disease.
During these times, I, not we, were not living in Peace, I was letting the times dictate my lifestyle, and I wasn’t sure Gail and I would ever retire or even get to retirement.
Since I turned my life over to God the Father by imitating His Son and listening to the whisper of the Holy Spirit, my life has changed, as I, we, have reported.
I Love the change.
I do feel protected. I have faith that God will take care of me because God HAS taken care of me.
Let’s go to the last few lines of the Psalms.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
Forever.
Goodness (some versions of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit have Goodness instead of Generosity) and Kindness, two of the nine Fruit of the Holy Spirit, do follow me since I have made the change to let God lead and I follow, and I now do believe this will continue all the days of my life,
And,
Because I am living in goodness and kindness, I am dwelling and will continue to dwell even after my death in the house of the Lord.
Where else would I want to live?
As we were typing this blog out, I realized how important it was for me to learn and say this Psalm daily. It only takes a few minutes, but the lines that stood and still stand out for me is;
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
Forever.
“The nine” We pray you will grow in the Love, Joy, and Peace of the Holy Spirit by growing in Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
Sidebar:
We showed a picture of a young girl raking trash that was littered around the church we were rebuilding in Honduras.
The first time Mike and I went to Honduras, Gail told her law office of the upcoming trip, and they decided on their own to buy toys for the kids we would be meeting.
I went down with my Navy duffle bag stuffed full of toys that her office went and bought.
The second day we were there, Mike and I decided to give the toys out to the kids. As we started to hand them out the Holy Spirit told me to tell the kids to draw a picture with the paper and crayons they were given.
What happened next blew everyone’s mind.
We are talking about kids who lived in one-room houses with no bathrooms. There was an outhouse that was used by many in that area.
One of the women in our group had to use the outhouse and was almost knocked out by the stench.
Around every house was trash.
Sometimes they ate that day; sometimes, they didn’t.
We, as judgmental Americans, concluded they were living in a third-world country and didn‘t have all the fine (?) things we had become accustomed to. Running clean water, bathrooms with a toilet, shower, and separate bedrooms, to mention a few. We will skip T.V. cars, etc.
The kids that afternoon did as we asked and came back with pictures that blew all of us away.
George, who headed our group, was a Psychologist, and in all the years he had been going to Honduras had never given drawing materials to the kids and asked for a picture in return.
What did the kids draw?
Happy Pictures!
Houses with picket fences, smiling clouds, happy family members, smiling dogs, and the dogs we saw there were fed as little as the people, flowers, happy trees, and the list went on.
George to a long look at the pictures and said, “If we had asked American children in the poorest parts of a city to do the same exercise, the pictures he would have gotten back would be of people shooting, planes shooting up the area, in short, all types of violence.”
I realized as I thought and now think about these pictures God took care of these kids; the children we met were filled with Joy. Their lives were not cluttered by the junk we accumulate in our lives. Their parent were trying to pull the families up, but in many cases, they were trapped in a system where the landlord charged an exorbitant rent for the small piece of land they lived on that didn’t allow them to get ahead.
We visited on that trip a family who had had a house built by our group the previous year, and when we showed up to say hello, they greeted us with open arms. I had never experienced a Love that we experienced, from strangers, that day, and sadly I had told Mike I didn’t want to go on that first trip.
Things don’t make a life, but letting the Lord be your Shephard does!
