ANGELS

 I'm so lucky, I have two churches where I feel at home.   
The picture above is from  The Church of Our Saviour in Haugesund. The picture under is from Sauda Church, which is its official name.

The special thing is that both churches have altar pieces depicting Jesus in Gethsemane.
Both are made by local painters, both are very well describing the loneliness. pain and agony of Christ.
There is one important difference though.
On the Sauda altar piece Christ is not alone. 
An angel was sent to wipe the blood sweat from his forehead. 
Jesus felt alone. He prayed to avoid what he knew was coming. "Not as I will, but as you will," he added.  
The answer was a comforting and strengthening angel.
We too are surrounded by angels.
Psalm 91:^{11 "}For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;"  
Let's rest in that promise.

For Dad Golden

Lauren Davenport in the blog Life and Breath and Everything Else has allowed us to share her photos for free, just by linking them to her blog. http://acts17v25.blogspot.no/

For free, forever free.

Our Father 8

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Jesus, who gave us this prayer, is trying to teach us just how great God is.

King of the Universe.

Power over everything from stars to ants.

His caring and love are beyond our comprehension.

Likewise the glory; for all creation shall honor Him.

Not for a decade or a century, but for ever and ever.

Our Father.

Amen.

Our Father 7

Evil at the foot of the pulpit of St.Mary's Church, Bergen. The woodcarvers of the baroque had a vivid interpretation of how and what the evil was like. It felt right to put him under the foot of the priest .

"But deliver us from evil"...

I know what the evil wants; murder and destroy. Spread conflicts, jealousy and hatred among friends, in families and in the church, and thus tear the good work down.

I sincerely pray God to protect us from all the evil's cunning attacks.
He has promised to do so. "Keep close to him, and he will keep close to you."

There's another even worse trap to walk into; be an evil doer myself. To seek revenge, and be tempted to use testimony and real evidence to hurt a person.
I know I feel tempted, so therefore I whispering pray,
"Deliver me from evil and from being evil or do evil".
.

Our Father 6

Lead us not into temptation,
I don't think the Lord leads us on paths of evil.
The tempter is another name for the devil, he certainly searches in every way to lead us astray.
The Lord has promised to guard us, so that not one of his lambs shall be missing.
Lead me away from temptation, is my prayer.
I am so often tempted to make wrong choices, say wrong things for the wrong reasons; it's a wonder I'm still, by grace, allowed to be among the children of God.
In the old prayer book of the Church of Norway, the phrase went, "You raise us for your Kingdom through Cross and Tribulation."
"It takes a strong back to carry only good days", my grandmother used to say.
I guess that if God hadn't made it crystal clear, I cannot achieve anything without him, I'd be even more obnoxious and smug than I am today.
I certainly need to carry on praying,
"Lead me away from temptations."

Our Father 5

Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.

This is a real hard one. I have a lot of sins on my conscience.
One of them is, I have hard to forgive when I or my family really have been hurt or harmed.
The injustices keep popping up when least expected, and I'm feeling like a looser, because I cannot forget.
Do I have to forgive, when the person hasn't asked for forgiveness?
I try to hide behind that question.
Is remembering and feeling hurt or angry the same as not forgiving?
I mean, I do not wish my evil-doers directly harm. I sometimes think the Lord might let them taste their own medicine. Then I remember my father's warning, "Let only the Lord pass judgement".

Bottom line is; I sorely need forgiveness, therefor I have to try to forgive.
I pray, "help me forgive", when I in my heart know I have not forgiven. One special offense I'd never think I could get past. I prayed this prayer for two years and one day it simply melted away like snow in the spring.

Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.

Our Father 4

Give us today our daily bread.

When I grew up, we used to have a porcelain platter with the gold inscription "Give us this day our daily bread". My mother's homemade bread was placed upon the platter for breakfast and supper.

It took me sometime to realize that we are praying for more than actually bread. We place the responsibility for our entire needs,
in the hands of God, our Father.
Day by day our daily bread. Like the Manna the bread will be provided us one day at a time. We therefore need to return in front of the Lord with the same prayer day after day.
We simply need to stay close to God, all the time, because our needs will change, but God's promises and power are eternal.

We need food for our bodies, food for our thoughts and food for our hearts.
Even if we don't feel and know of famine, like one billion of the population of the world do, we do eat food which poisons our bodies, read and watch material made to seduce our minds and hearts, and lead us astray from our goal.
We may think we are alive, but we are dying, according to the Revelations.

Indeed we need to pray for daily living bread and water.
Oh, Lord, please be the great provider.
"Give us today our daily bread."

Our Father 3

Your will be done.

It has often been tough and self revealing to pray Our Father, and mean every word of it.
Too often I'm sitting in my tiny hole, understanding so little of my life and others, not to mention lacking the great perspective.
When the Lord's will is done, it's for the best for me and for the rest of the world.
So why did Jesus teach us to pray the Almighty "Thy will be done"?
We all belong to him. He sees the entire puzzle from afar.
We are living entirely by grace and we are valuable treasures to him.
Even so, it is necessary that I in my heart and with my mouth submit to his will.
I recommend my self into the hands of my father and say, not mine, but,
"Your will be done."

Our Father 2

Hallowed be your name.
We have a Father with a name that must be held Holy.
My mother used to say that she preferred men cursing to women disgracing God's name.
I wonder why that is a woman thing, "Oh my"?
My language may not be the best, so I shouldn't throw any stone.
I just wish for the ones ill-using God's holy name, that they might learn to know him.
Remember you are dust, remember you are more than dust.
He is our dear, loving, caring Father.
He is also God Almighty, the first and the last, creator of the universe.
Hallowed be your name.

Our Father 1

The prayer the English call the Lord's Prayer is called Our Father in Norwegian, Pater Noster in Latin.
I love that prayer more and more, the older I get.
It embraces all my needs as a human being and my loss of words to worship.

Our Father.
God is my father, not an indefinite spirit of the universe,
not a distant impersonal god.
He is my father.
He knows me by name.
He numbered my days, even before I was born.
He is the shadow at my right hand.
He will never leave nor forsake me.
Our Father.

For the Director of Music.

There are days when words seem empty and meaningless. I'm familiar with pains beyond description. I'm blessed to know The Director of Music. Where words stop having meaning, the music begins.

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.

¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

WORD OF LIFE

I cannot resist a good challenge. When Leora implied that I probably could not make the same Photoshop choices twice, I simply had to try once more to improve another wrecked picture. The bleak January sky and gray sea made my take of our harbor skyline dull and blur.
What made the change is an artistic filter called poster edges.
The lighthouse guarding the sailing entrance from the west, gave inspiration to the well known words from Psalm 119. (Hebrew Bible).
I wish you all a peaceful week end.

Leftovers

As good housewives we are trained to take care of the leftovers and use them as intelligently and colorfully we possibly can. Be it dinner, fabric or yarn. Patchwork, the great American folk art, is made of leftovers. When photographing I have been quick to delete my mischiefs. Today I was out in our garden to capture the first snow drops. This picture went off by accident. I had some minutes left and thought I'd fiddle with it in Photoshop before erasing it.


^{1 Chor. 1:27} But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him.

KNOWN; LOVED, COUNTED

Picture, My Mom on Sola beach, taken by Gunnar Jac.

Today I'm writing my blog post # 500. I'd like it to be special, a gift from me to you. I remember a sermon telling we should live and die in Romans eight. I tried to find an out-take that could summon it all up, but I found no verse to exclude.

Romans 8

¹There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

³For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

⁴That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

⁵For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

⁶For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

⁷Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

⁸So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

¹⁰And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

¹¹But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

¹²Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

¹³For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

¹⁴For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

¹⁵For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

¹⁶The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

¹⁷And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

¹⁸For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

¹⁹For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

²⁰For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

²¹Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

²²For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

²³And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

²⁴For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

²⁵But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

²⁶Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

²⁷And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

²⁸And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

²⁹For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

³⁰Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

³¹What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

³²He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

³³Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

³⁴Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

³⁶As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

³⁷Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

³⁸For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

³⁹Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Every Grain of Sand

Bob Dylan

In the time of my confession,
in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet
flood every newborn seed
There's a dyin' voice within me
reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in
the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to
look back on any mistake,
Like Cain,
I now behold this chain of events
that I must break.
In the fury of the moment
I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles,
in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence
and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals,
they have choked the breath
of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps
of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness
and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of
temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way
I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey
I come to understand
That every hair is numbered
like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches
in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream,
in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness
fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence
on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like
the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there,
other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance
of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling,
like every grain of sand.

De Profundis

Serina has taught me how to blur a background. Yesterday's blessing.
My soul is singing De Profundis.
When all promises and words of comfort are failing, there are always the Psalms.


Magical Mystery Teacher is hosting Ruby Tuesday 2 together with Gemma Wiseman