Spiritual Flesh and Blood 7

(A continuation of a story. If you want to start at the beginning, scroll to Spiritual Flesh and Blood 1)

Satan’s greatest mission is to conceal the mystery and greatness of love from the human race.  He seeks to pollute it in many forms.  Love leads to marriage.  He slowly demolishes that definition.  Love leads to family.  He plans its ruin.  Love gives to sacrifice.  He leads the heart toward selfishness.  Love leads to forgiveness.  He whispers the offense again and again into the ear of the offended.  The power of love reaches far and wide.  It is the greatest weapon that the demonic army must battle.  The greatest opponent to the God of Love is the god of lies.
Satan has been whispering lies into the ears of humans for all of history.  He whispered that same thing into my ear.  He told me, “Ha!  God does not love you!  Insignificant little Claire.  God is ashamed of you, little motherless child, if there even is a God at all.  He does not want you.  He does not love you.”  But like many, even though I struggled, God had a bigger plan for me.  God showed me what a deep, personal love he has for me.

When I was seven years old, Angel Life won the greatest battle of my life.  I was young and innocent by the world’s standards.  I had not been so polluted by sin and the world as much as someone that has lived more of their life.  It is easier for the angelic army to win the battle in a young child.

To be continued…

Spiritual Flesh and Blood 6

He was raised by a nanny and then sent off to boarding school at the age of ten.  He had one older half-sister, Sarah.  She was ten years older and not a part of his childhood at all. She was his father’s child from a past marriage and lived with her mother in another state on the other side of the country.  He also had seven other half-siblings, but he never knew of their existence and his father never claimed them.  They lived with their mothers in poverty, children of prostitutes.  

His childhood contained a workaholic father who traveled more than he was at home and a needy mother who succumbed to the cravings of this world.  He had no rules. He was told to follow his desires and he was given the resources to do so.  His name was Wayne.  

Deep, deep evil and the purest goodness fought for these two lives.  They battled for my life and for the life of Wayne.  Our lives were connected from birth but we did not know it.  We were meant to be and we were prepared for each other.  Not by our parents, not by our teachers, not by ourselves, but by God.  He always has a bigger plan than we see.  He has a plan of love for each of us.  Satan does not believe in love and he does not understand but he is terrorized by its power.  He shrieks and wriggles at the very mention of the word.

To be continued…

Spiritual Flesh and Blood 5

There was another life that affected my own as much as anything that happened during my childhood.  He was formed out of the dust of the ground and I was made from the ribs of his body.  I was completely oblivious to the life of a little boy who was as much me as I was myself.

He was not loved by his parents, but he was provided for.  Concurrent to the day of my mother’s funeral, his father called him into his office.  The little boy wore a designer baby blue suit tailored to fit him, made of shorts at the bottom to show his knee socks and leather two toned shoes.  His bowl haircut and chubby cheeks showed his youth more than his dress or his serious expression. He walked with fear, wishing he had not carried his airplane into his father’s presence.  His father leaned forward from behind his large desk.  The sun shone in from the large window behind him so that the little boy could only see his large silhouette.

Invisible demons stroked his father, “Yes.  Yes.  You are powerful.  What is this thing that lingers in your presence.  Make him leave.”  His father listened to this inner conversation as he stared down at him.  He thought about his personal power and accomplishments.  Who was this person that was not respectful of what he had accomplished?

The little boy paused, not knowing that the silence was awkward, knowing only that it was fearful.  His heart was beating quickly.

A beautiful woman wearing a dress suit and her hair tied up in a bun walked over and leaned down and whispered into his father’s ear.  His father did not change his expression or even seem to notice, except that he gave her a single nod.

Then his father addressed him.  He spoke for the first time since the boy had entered the room.  It was two words but it turned all the mystery and awe the little boy had concerning this man into one thing:  hate.

“Go away.” These two words his father coldly addressed toward him.  He gave no reason for having called him there.  What he felt now was what he had always felt about his son.  His father felt he had never wanted him.

To be continued…

Spiritual Flesh and Blood 4

Her death was an emptiness that would haunt my life and I did not know how to fill that void.  My father shut himself off inside his church.  He was a pastor who was closed off to his children.  We were now nothing but a reminder of the wife he lost.  We were nothing but a burden like predicted.

My father hid in his work, not knowing how to deal with his own hurt.  Loss of love hurts so badly.  When he was alone, he would think about us and how he wanted to love us and help us.  He thought about how much we must be hurting also.  That is because his heart was good.  He would promise himself that he would do things better.  He would be a better father.  But he did not pray concerning us.  He did not call on God to be our father.  He tried to do it in his own power.  And whenever he was in our presence, Demon Suffering squeezed his throat so that the right words would not come out and my father would run from our presence to seek relief from that pain that he always felt when he was around us.

And then a new demon joined my father:  Demon Regret.  Now he could never be a father again.  He had messed everything up in our family.  He quit trying.

To be continued…

Spiritual Flesh and Blood 3

The funeral of my mother at the age of five altered my life forever.  We had been a happy family.  I was not only provided for, but I had been invested in.  I had been the child of my parents’ happy marriage which had spilled over into a happy home.  My father, a manly man, had been so pleased to work hard to provide for his wife and children.  He felt he was good and he felt God was repaying him with this happy life.  With the death of my mother, I also lost my father.  He could not be father and mother, so he decided to be neither.  I lost my childhood.  I lost my innocent happiness.  I stood at her funeral, holding the hand of an aunt that I did not know, and so unsure of the new emotion that I felt:  fear.  I was a motherless child.  

After the ceremony, the few people my family knew in our little town gathered at our house.  It was a small simple farmhouse but my mother had made it a home.  With her death, even our home died.  Now it was just a house.  It suddenly lacked the charm that comes when there is happiness in the air.  I stood in the corner near the staircase.  I was blocked by a wall, but around the opening I could hear relatives whispering, “What will Matthew do with these children now?  What a burden for him.”

No, I was not the only child of Matthew and Grace Parker.  I was one of three children.  I had a brother, David, who was four years older and a sister, Fern, who was two years younger.

The whispers continued, “She always spoiled them and now he is going to have to pay the price.”

“Well, I think he deserves it.  He should have taken better care of her.  It is his fault this happened.”

“All I know is that children are expensive.  He doesn’t have any money.”

“Well, I happen to know where he can find a new wife.  That is the only solution I know of.”

“You are exactly right.  I mean it.  I agree with you.  And he’d better come to terms with that sooner than later.”

This was followed by small snickers.  They were not possessed by demons.  These people had been saved by God.  But they had been stopped in their footsteps.  They refused to fight.  They stood in their comforts of life and did not want to be burdened by the troubles of this world.  When they were tempted, they quietly gave in and kept it hidden.  When demons told them to judge, they gladly obliged.  They were modern day Pharisees.  The demons could not enter their bodies, but they could sit on their shoulders and whisper into their ears and influence their thoughts and actions.  The demons promised comfort in this world in exchange for their cooperation.

This is how the community felt about their responsibility to fill in the motherly gap that we now inherited.  There was never a solution or an attempt at one.  Our happy home was never happy again.  We had lost Eden.

To be continued…

Spiritual Flesh and Blood 2

And with that the angel army charged and the two armies collided for the beginning of a fierce battle in the war of a precious life.  That life was me.  This story is my unseen life, more real than this tangible world we feel and breathe and taste.  This is my story, lasting for eternity.

There is Heaven and there is Hell.  There is a spiritual world that we cannot see.  And there is earth.  It is controlled by the spirits but humans give too much regard to sight.

On the earth, mankind heard the first cries of a new baby.  I was born.  Claire Louisa Parker.  Fully human and claimed by God.  He had sent an angelic army to protect me and to claim me for his own.

But I was blemished I was born with sin.  I was in need of a savior.  There was still a war to be fought.

My parents loved me.  The love of my parents was the first victory Angel Life won.  My mother and father were innocent and they were ignorant.  They loved me and they loved each other.  But they built a weak foundation that could not stand the test of the war that surrounded them.  Their base, their family, was soon to collapse.

Demon Death swung his sword and struck the left shoulder of Angel Life, leaving a great injury.  From this world, my mother collapsed.  Her love and her guidance left me.  Her love had been the stronghold of our family.  Human love and human goodness was not enough.  Our family lacked a firm foundation.  My mother died when I was five and my life would always feel the wound.  Mourning and suffering plagued my childhood home.  Overnight, dark forces settled over our house that was no longer a home.

To be continued…

Pornographic Love

As a young girl, Christmas was sheer magic.  One year, a very long time ago, a few months before the holidays, I saw a commercial.  We did not have a television in our home.  I must have been at a relative or a friend’s house, but I vividly remember seeing a commercial of the very thing that would fill the hole in my heart and that would make me forever happy and perfect.  A Poppel.  A plush little toy that would instantly transform into a ball…or so they did on the commercial.  With a fun little song, this thing transformed from a stuffed animal into a plush ball back and forth, back and forth and the world was just as it should be.  And I wanted one.

I dreamed of it day after day and I counted down the days until Christmas…until it was Christmas morning and I just couldn’t stand it anymore.  My life was about to be completely meaningful and perfect and I would never want anything else ever again.

Well, something happened that was not a habit growing up in a household with eight children.  I FINALLY opened a package that contained all my hopes and my dreams in that one Christmas present.  Not only did I get one Poppel, I GOT TWO!

But because you have a very similar story to mine, you already know the ending.  That thing just didn’t work like it had on the commercial.  It took every muscle in my little girl body to transform that animal into a plush ball …and it was still never perfectly round.  And it just didn’t pop out quite like it had on the television to that fun little song.  And I never told my parents (until they are probably reading it here) but that thing just did not fulfill me like it had promised to.

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exist.  A baby feels hunger.   Well, there is such a thing as food.  A duckling wants to swim.  Well, there is such a thing as water.  Men feel sexual desire.  Well, there is such a thing as sex.  If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.  If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.  Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”  – CS Lewis

Daily, hourly, by the minute, I have these desires.  I want my world to be perfectly clean.  I want my husband to walk through the door with fresh flowers and a surprise date.  I long to look strikingly gorgeous every single time I peek into the mirror.  I want my daughter to always be polite and over succeed at every single thing she attempts.  I want to turn on the nightly news and hear the report that ISIS is forever gone and there are too many wonderful things happening to ever report.  I WANT ME AND ALL THINGS AROUND ME TO BE PERFECT!

Here.  It never can be.  But I do believe that perfect does exist.

According to covenanteyes.com, 68% of men view porn at least once a week.  A desire being fed by an empty substitute with detrimental consequences.  There is a real body to love.  Caroline, there is a place that is perfect.  We were not made for this world.  It is a desperate and empty search to try and find that completeness here on earth.  We were made with desires and longings that only a perfect God can fill and one day, those that turn to him, will experience all our desires met in complete perfection.

Hymns of Nature

Tall grass.  Mountain tops.  Sunshine.  I spread my arms and circle around.  The sun kisses my cheeks and the wind happily plays my game.  “HE LIVES!”  My voice screams out.

Booming through the peaks, singing from the trees, nature sings out her response, “Oh, we know.  He made us.”

Running down the hills, hiking through the woods, my travel leads to me to seclusion.  The smell of pine, the babbling of the brook, and the chatter of the birds.  Gazing on a line of ants, distracted by a playful squirrel, interrupted by the spying of a buck.  “BEAUTIFUL ANIMALS, THERE IS A GOD.”

Preparations do not end.  The play continues on.  Silly giggles reply, “Dear woman, look around you.  We have always known he made us.”

Praise God!  They know!  All of creation worships their Creator.  He shines in the sun, whispers in the wind, and directs the ant in its work.  At ease, I continue home.

Driving through the city, passing the masses of the humans.  Little girls dance in circles.  Mommies shop for deals.  Young men running in the gym.  Teachers leading their classes.  I join them and I share, “Praise God, he made us all!”

The human world comes to a screeching halt.  They turn and stare.  They all yell out, “No!  We will have no God here!”

Oh dear flowers, sweet bunnies, and swimming fish, you all know and praise what we all deny.

All or Nothing

If you are hungry, gather at the table.  The meal is just out of the oven and it is plentiful.  If you are full, there is no reason to answer to the call.  Jesus Christ has come to heal the sick, to find the lost, to seek and to save.  He calls those that are sinners, those that are hurting, and those in need.  If you do not find yourself lacking, faithless generation, then do not respond when he calls your name.

He watched his son, thrown to the ground and his body sent into convulsions.  There was nothing he could do.  Helpless is the worst place to be.  And to watch your son in pain, there is no greater torture for a parent.  But there was hope, something that was his last resort, he brought his son to the man he heard stories about.

“Jesus, IF you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Jesus turned to the man.  He saw his pain, he saw his hurt, and he did something that is in his nature.  It is who he is.  He loved him.  Jesus is all consuming love.  But he did not stop there, he addressed something beyond physical needs, he addressed the heart, “IF you can!  ALL things are possible for the one who believes.”  Jesus made the heavens that are so vast that all our technology can not even count the stars or the galaxies.  He knows our bodies down to the smallest atom.  He made it all, he controls it all, there is no IF when God is involved.

We all make mistakes!  Each and every one of us.  The only thing that matters is if we learn from them.  And this man did.  He was at a point where Jesus was his only hope.  When Jesus is all you have, you see at last that Jesus is all you need.  The father of the suffering child called out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

And here I live.  I BELIEVE; HELP MY UNBELIEF!  I want nothing more than Jesus!  HE IS EVERYTHING!  When I lose my life, I find it.  When I give myself, I get all of Jesus in return.  When I abandon my plan, the God of the universe steps in and says, “Watch what I can do!”

Too often I pray for God to speak to me, but what I really want is for him to confirm the comfort of my plans.  Lord, I give it all!  I give you my marriage, it will fall apart without you.  I give you my daughter, you are the perfect parent!  You are all she needs!  I give you my plans, my resources, my health, my very life, I count it all as NOTHING before the throne of your grace and mercy.  And you take me in your loving arms and you give me an inheritance of heaven!

And he is faithful!  THE ONE WHO CALL YOU IS FAITHFUL, HE WILL DO IT!  1 Thessalonians 5:24

If you are not ready for miracles, do not bother to show up.

Dr. Ben Carson for President of the United States of America!

  
I do not care much to meet a movie star on the streets of New York or shake hands with a rockstar at a concert.  No offense or disrespect, just nothing about that inspires me.  Dr. Ben Carson coming to town for a book signing, now that excites me!

My family and I just spent most of the whole day standing outside of a bookstore in order to shake the hand of Dr. Carson and for him to scribble his name across the inside cover of his new book.  Total time in his presence: all of about seven seconds.  I SAID THAT I GOT TO TOUCH THE HAND OF DR. BEN CARSON AND HE WROTE HIS NAME ON MY BOOK!  It was amazing!  My heart was about to beat out of my chest and every star struck nerve in my body was on overload.  The man is my hero!

Please PLEASE please read his books!  I have read his life story, Gifted Hands,One Nation, his amazing book about his personal beliefs about how our country should be governed from a Biblical worldview, and I am currently sucked into his newest book, A More Perfect Union.  

In the last two books mentioned, he states a Bible verse at the beginning of each chapter.  A More Perfect Union is a guide to understanding the Constitution of the United States of America, the duty of each and every American citizen.

I wholeheartedly believe that this leader was raised up by God and is meant to bring our nation back to “One Nation Under God” in which we flourish and are an aide to neighboring countries, a country that we want to leave to our children, a country where we are not entitled to riches but we have the freedom and motivation to work until we see our dreams come true.

Agree with me, disagree with me, but read his words and be inspired from a little boy that was abandoned by his father, grew up in a situation that should have been labeled as another statistic in jail or dead at an early age, see how he lived the true American dream and became a leading pediatric neurosurgeon, author, and presidential candidate.

Not only will I vote for Dr. Ben Carson because I believe he is the better option running, I will vote for Dr. Ben Carson because I believe he has the knowledge and wisdom to save our country from the brink of destruction and return us to prosperity.