Expansion

I am so blessed.  This is a phrase that is hard to say with any real meaning since it is so cleche.  But I refuse to let it be stolen from all usage.  I am blessed.  My household is expanding.  Even as I shed the last vestiges of the American Dream.  Prayers are being answered.  God is meeting my needs in very real and close personal ways.  This is also cleche, but I'm beginning to understand it.

My family has expanded and improved...been touched by glory, even.  My wife is more beautiful to me than ever before.  More desirable and more satisfying.  I mean that.  She is a total package of internal and external beauty.  I find myself staring at her and even notice that the intentionally titillating stuff on TV and movies has no real appeal to me compared to her.  I'm not making this up.  I'm human and do not lie that I have been attracted by this kind of thing.  But recently, I find it holds nothing for me compared to her.

My son is growing and learning to adapt to his new life.  I've always had a hard time connecting with him, but I think we are making progress there.  He might finally be learning to see the real goals of my training and discipline.  And I am ready to be more honest with him about it.  I never thought much good could come from hiding things, even small things like why we tell him to do certain things, or how we budget our money, etc.  And I think he is responding.

I have a beautiful goddaughter whom I love dearly.  She is not merely the kid that I stood next to in some ceremony.  She was imprinted on my heart by God himself.  She is truly beautiful, as she begins to grow up and I can see that she will be a stunning picture of physical beauty, but her heart is tender and sweet.  she thinks often of others first and will be a model for what God intends for a woman to be.  She is beginning to trust this relationship and see her own real value beyond the cheesy self-esteem stuff.  She is lovely and lovable and she is learning how to live in that.

Her mom is starting to accept us as family as well.  We are learning to communicate and help each other in real ways and my hope is that this will continue to grow into an increasingly permanent bond of family.

And lastly, we just recently became godparents to her other daughter!  A brilliantly smart and beautiful teenager who quickly understands situations in a very insightful way.  She is equally modest about her successes and strengths.  Which is so appealing in this age of boasting and self-aggrandizing.  She is physically and emotionally beautiful and so smart, making for a very appealing woman.  My hope is that she will come to understand her value as her sister is learning to.

She was recently added to our family because God started to point her out to us.  We have loved her for a long time now, but finally the time was right to ask her if we could be her family and she was so happy.  As am I.  I have long believed that family is found more in the intentional relation of people than in any other form.  The saying is only part true.  Blood may be thicker than water, but spirit is the strongest bond of all.  I have also long felt a hole in myself that bit by bit, I learned was cut for this very thing.

I don't know how long things last.  I'm sure trials and troubles will come again.  But I also feel confident that I am not in the same place I was before.  God has raised me up.  He has expanded my territory.  Not just my family, but my work, my friends, my finances, my health, everything is now bearing a light of power and glory.  I know that whatever comes, I shall not be forsaken and my God is my strength and my hope.  I hope my reach as Legatus Regni continues to expand to reveal God's glory in this world.  And regardless of that, I will stand by those God has given me as long as I live.

To them I say that they have nothing to fear.  God has answered their prayers.  They may not see it or know it yet.  But I am just the advance runner bringing news of what is to come.  Just wait and see.  And I will be there with you and for you all through everything to come.  This is not my promise.  This is God's promise to you.  I am made for this, so it is pure joy and fulfilment for me to be this gift to you.  In short, I love you.

Capitalized

Our minds are not as secure as we like to think.  No...I will phrase that personally since I don't know anything about anyone else's mind.  My mind is not as secure as I like to think.  It doesn't help to live with someone who has an uncanny and reproducible ESP.  But that isn't what I mean either.

I mean the ability for Satan (yes I wrote it finally) to use my mind against me.  I'm sure there is a deep sanctuary somewhere that no but me and God have access to...perhaps a place even I don't have access to.  But then there are the surface activities of my mind which are only slightly less public than spoken words.  These are the thoughts that are available to ESPers and other beings with the appropriate senses to perceive them.

But this is a given for me.  What brought me to this blog entry is the recent occurrence of very good objects of my thoughts being capitalized upon to make me miserable.  Of course I could just be doing this to myself, but there is no way to tell the difference so it really doesn't matter.  The fact is things which I care about are easy prey for my fears.  It doesn't take much to turn a beautiful thing into a misery of anxiety.  I have been facing this all week.

I am hoping to stop it now.  Just by recognizing it for what it is and refusing to be victim to it, I can gain ground.  I also have to focus on what is true and what is outside of my mind.  Inside is a terrible mine field of shifting unrealities.  I must focus on that which is not me.  That which exists whether I will it, know it, or understand it.

This is a great value in the structure of Christianity.  So many other religions focus inward.  But I know God as other, as beyond.  His most vivid revelation of himself was not in me, but in the physical world.  If it was in me, how could I be sure it was real?  No, I will recount facts and will trust in Him who is not me, who is other than me, yet permeates me as well.  I need to hear the voice of the real to see things as they are and to trust Him for what I can't see.  The alternative is to forever have my joys and victories usurped and capitalized upon for my undoing.

No more.