ABOUT DESTINY, HOPES AND FEARS

Ascertaining who you are in God´s eyes and will!

Deciding who you want to be… when no one is around!

Usually people fear death, either in its natural form of departure from life or as isolation or rejection by their peers and because of it they end up letting enter in their lives the fear of life by not daring to stand up, firm, in their convictions, just for the sake of seeking acceptance from exacting peers who manipulate their aspiration to be another member of the gang, without mattering what type of gang it is… social, political, financial, religious or whatever fad is in fashion at the time being.

And for these understandable but not acceptable reasons people tend to compromise or rationalize their beliefs, their moral values, their convictions and their loyalties…

And sorrier than anything else is when their livelihood depends on the whims or shortsightedness of people who feel like life or death decision makers… Just because by a fortuitous or “sought after” turn of events they become appointed to apparent limelight positions or because they have been accepted as the leaders of some human “dominion or control” fiefdom on this earth.

Humans love to build up their little fiefdoms, their little kingdoms, and their little controlling and dominion scenarios. They feel themselves like kings of the roads, happily or anxiously immersed in their insignificant dealings and wheelings even in what should be the important service on behalf of the Lord, where qualifications, size and nature do not matter but motivations and willingness and where unselfishness is the vital part of the service so we can positively reach the suffering and the needy.

God´s plans for us are neither our personal aggrandizement nor our Christian posturing in life… Not even if we are indispensable for a while in terms of leading the seeding or putting our hands on the plow… but to show in our weakness and inadequacy His incomparable strength and wisdom as well as His generosity and mercy.

We should have always in mind and indelibly printed on our hearts what the Lord tell us in Second Samuel 14:14… “For we shall surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one may not be cast out from him”.

And if the Lord does not cast away or refuses to accept the uncomfortable and hard to understand outcasts… Why should we?

One thing I have learned along the way. We should not have to fear the world, nor death, nor life, nor compulsory compliance with any human group or endeavor. WHAT WE MUST HAVE IS TO HAVE “FEAR OF GOD” A REAL ONE! A HEALTHY, PURIFIED AND RIGHTEOUS ONE! BY FEAR MEANING THE DEEPEST RECOGNITION OF HIS GRACE AND OUR TOTAL DEPENDENCY ON HIM! AND THE DEEPEST GRATEFULNESS FOR HIS TAKING CARE OF US, PRESERVING OUR LIVES FOR GREATER TASKS AND CHALLENGES IN HIS SERVICE!

Because this is the only way we can be of any use, of any good, on His behalf while we labor in the advancement of His Kingdom. And as we walk along the way, we cannot but be, at the same time vertical and uncompromising in our beliefs… Tolerantly understanding the reality of ours and other people´s weaknesses, but not appeasing the unrighteousness just because of it.

Because if we do so we will just miss the opportunity that allows us to become effective prayer warriors, Especially when we state that we are committed to a Christian Way of Living… Avoiding at all costs to turn it into a material and convenient Livelihood that distorts and irremediably contaminates the purity and the righteousness of our thoughts, feelings, purposes, deeds and actions

About marriage, family and life…!

Life when lived to its fullest extent is not a fairy tale. It is made of circumstances and people as well. Both of them are so varied in structure and content and this is the most wonderful example of a vivential fabric that resists all adversities and challenges.

And the basic foundation of all this is the family that started by the junction of two individual lives, a man and a woman, united in love in the ups and downs of their living together and their raising of children now turn into men who altogether with the new women in their lives continue extending such a fabric throughout generations and new developing circumstances.

The uniqueness even if repeatedly present in every family founded on Christian moral values and under God´s protection, is the blending of two different personalities.

God has not made clones. He joins different upbringings and different perspectives and understanding of life, making of it the resilient net where the hardships of life, intermingled with the pleasures, successes and accomplishments bounce in a merry and at times a not so merry go round.

A bouncing that makes us remember the children´s chorus of the one hundred elephants jumping over a delicate spider web, hung between the branches of the human and divine love that allowed its forming in the first place.

God blesses and He blesses a lot. He had done so to us because He knew in His omniscience that we would badly need it to endure and overcome the trials that come our way and do make our walking a never ending unpredictable journey.

And trials we have had! Trials we presently endure while we hope they will end soon. Because we trust, because we hope, because we wait for the time of the Lord!

It is as I said not a fairy tale but a vivid one representing the outcome of our love. It is not a tale of serene placidity but a building up of a family out of two different upbringings and perspectives.

We only hope that your lives, dear sons and families, dear friends and acquaintances could be as ours so in your later days you be able to sit back, smile and joke about what it was, about what it could have been, and about what it will probably be until we are finally called to our final rest.

C´EST SI BON! IT IS GOOD!

It is good and feels good to be asked on the metro bus to give your seat to another guy who looked older than you, and then find out that he is only 55 years old while you still are only 71 out of the wonderful 104 of the young ones at heart.

C´EST SI BON! IT IS GOOD!

IT IS AND FEELS SO GOOD TO HAVE A LOVING PARTNER BESIDE YOU FOR ALREADY 47 YEARS AND ONLY GOD KNOWS HOW MANY MORE!

A TIME TO REST

About visions… missions… and resting in between…

We have entered into the seventies… Apparently we have retired again. But this is only a resting time in between…

A new vision is looming over the horizon… A vision given to Gary Adams, a dear missionary, pastor and friend! It is just a matter of knowing when the time to start walking again will come… We are sure the trumpet will resound again!

He saw a vast, hot and dusty plain and a mountain range far away with a rank of newly drafted young soldiers marching on Their uniforms were crisp and clean, Their weapons clean and shiny, But no ranking officers on sight. A veteran! His weapon obviously battle tested A veteran! His weapon obviously battle tested
His appearance began to change. His uniform became crisp and clean; he no longer limped, but rather had a spring in his step… His face was now clean shaven, expectancy reflected in his countenance while the soldiers watched solemnly but respectfully as he marched onward.
Suddenly, his rank could be seen A General! Moving to the front of the ranks (his rightful place) and leading those troops from that time on.
Then… many other “ranking officers” moved out from the rear and began to follow him experiencing the same transformation as the General had. Each received a new commission and was placed strategically among the troops.

And in agreement with Gary´s vision as many others I am sure, we say Apparently we have retired again… But it is only a resting time in between…

LIFE IS JUST A PROCESS

Where there is a beginning working towards an end.

Where God has placed goals and destinations but men usually stumble upon pebbles, rocks, detours and crossroads, losing time and energies, wasting the opportunities that will take them ahead.

Life is a beautiful garden where besides the flowers stand the cactuses as well.

And where... Life, thanks God, in his mercy, can provide you with second, third and only He knows how many opportunities to restore and re-route our way.

GOD WILL MAKE A WAY FOR ALL THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD

In my last blog posting I shared our experience with the little butterfly that shared our dorm with us for a few days, as she could or did not want to fly away, because, externally, you could not see any reason for her not to.

This way, she was so similar to so many abused and abandoned children, beautiful on the outside, but bleeding and needing tenderness and protection inside.

Unfortunately, the little butterfly could not live long. Having to travel from Guatemala to El Salvador for my second granddaughter 17 birthday celebration, I was recommended to leave her among the flowers in my son Victor´s home, where, supposedly, she would be warm and safe.

That night temperature dropped to 12 centigrade’s and she died, possibly not because of the cold weather but from the lack of the home warmth she had enjoyed for a few days.

Similarly, I am firmly convinced, children, more than material and external comfort, what they really need most is home warmth, feeling accepted and loved, feeling they have the right to a second chance in life, all available material comfort included, because, I feel, children do not need to feel as an orphan, nor treated as one, nor being subject to any adult´s decision detrimental to their right to receive all and everything that can be given to them. There is, never, such thing as too much!

This conviction has led me to think that, even if the little butterfly died from cold she, from that moment on started to feel the warmness that only her Creator, not anyone of us, can give her, and similarly, every child will feel that warmth without having to die first.

God will make a way for every child, where and when it could seem impossible to find a way because of our insufficient understanding of the privilege and blessing of being able to love, protect, care and take care of, and give the best and most abundant to all the children He places in our paths.

Because they deserve it! They are the apples of the eyes of God! Consequently, they should be the apples of our eyes, too! Mathews 18: 6, 10

GOD WILL MAKE A WAY FOR ALL THE LITTLE BUTTERFLIES (CHILDREN) OF THIS WORLD

We have been presently spending some time with one of my sons in Guatemala. My wife and I have had ample time to go on our own and walk the streets and visit the places of the beautiful country that has been our home for more than 27 years, and where we will probably stay until the Lord calls us to rest besides Him.

In here it is not wise to freely go around taking pictures of people but we have found many children whose faces make us remember the children we left behind in Nicaragua.

But something very special has been happening since a few days ago. While my wife was laundering some of my shirts when she took down one of them from the drying rope she found on it a small butterfly that since that day has not flown away.

She has stayed in our dormitory quiet and cozy moving only from one little place to another, being the latest one a white Christmas polar bear teddy.

She is not one of the most beautiful butterflies on first sight, but when you keep on seeing her you begin to see in its brownish color beautiful details. This made me remember our spiritually adopted kids and made us meditate how wonderful is to be able to extend our love, care and protection to the little ones as my son Victor so tenderly says when he talks about his children.

All this has made me want to share with you my inner and deepest conviction that those children, our own flesh and blood and the ones who have come to you are the beautiful butterfly blessings that the Lord sends your way, and that He will make a way for every one of them.

It is for you to enjoy these blessings to the hilt by really loving them, not just giving them some material things or some temporary protection or some material dwelling for them to live in. What is most important is for them to be convinced that they dwell in your hearts and that you really love them as if they were your own.

Just a few moments ago while my wife was having her daily bible meditation, the little butterfly flew from the bear to her bible pages and then to her fingers.

What is the message from the Lord? She asked to the butterfly. I answered on its behalf... A message of communion in shared love! A message of gratefulness and trust on us by all the little butterflies that have beautified our home throughout our life! A reaffirming message that God will find a way for all the little butterflies of this world!

Our granddaughters are asking her. Grandma? Why is that little butterfly in our home? Is she sick? And grandma answers… My dear ladies… she needs our love! And they solemnly decided: we will love her!

IDENTITY AND AUTHENTICITY

This has been an unending dilemma through the times and especially now with all the cyclical crisis of all sorts, shapes, contents and whatever that are rocking and sinking all the boats of the human endeavors, ambitions, egotisms, extemisms, fakiness, ruthlesness and discrimination.

In relation to name callings and justifications you can make your choice. what it is never or rarely mentioned are the concepts of values, moral, social, spiritual, you name it, that are in a worse state of bancruptcy than the financial ones, associated with the rampant consumism and distortions of the understanding of life as it should be.

I hope you enjoy the following videos and the included thoughts and comments

More about palm trees, crisis, challenges, spiritual growth and many other life´s issues

Just a few days ago I was sharing thoughts about expanding our awareness of how Mother Nature teaches us lessons on profound and sensitive human understanding of the creatures and all types of living beings linked by the unavoidable similitude and compatibility that sustain the existence and progress of the whole creation

I was specially referring myself to a royal palm tree growing up on a hot city sidewalk in Managua, Nicaragua. Then, just 2 days later, in El Salvador, I did receive from my friends a series of pictures showing the damages and desolation brought by Hurricane Ike to the City of Galveston, Texas, and interestingly enough, idyllic ones from many beautiful places around the world.

I will not say surprisingly but coincidentally in all of them royal palm trees were somehow at the center of the stage in all of them. And then again, in just another 24 hours passing lapse, invited by my oldest son to a men´s spiritual retreat, I found myself enjoying being a guest in a very special place by a lake after driving through highways, paved and unpaved roads, flanked by luxuriant vegetation and houses of every thinkable type

Comments´ sharing was abundant while passing by opulent residences, more than bungalows, where even in one of them 2 helicopters were seen parked as they were milkmen bicycles. And all this happened side by side if not on the other side of the road of humble dwellings where young and old people placidly watched us driving by on our way to the place where worship songs would resound all day long in joyful brokenness before our God, Savior and Lord.

What immediately raised my awareness of a very special coming day and impressed me the most was seeing palms after more palm trees all along the roads, as the one in my hot and humid native country.

They transmitted to my mind and my spirit the sequence of the real reason for their existence not only in the material environment but also in the spiritual one that in just some minutes would transport us both inside our inner communion with our Lord as out into the harmonious connection of the Mother Nature and its Creator.

The message was the awareness of the imperious need to transcend our tribulations, circumstances and peer pressures, paying more careful attention so we could learn the transmitted lesson that was being pounded on me by the palm trees with disregard to any specific space, time, opportunity or reason.

And I went to the internet and found myriads of reports and pictures showing palms resisting every imaginable type of adverse circumstances. And I could not do anything more than remember the male children and adolescents I had left behind.

I could not do anything more than pray all day long asking the Lord to turn them into responsible young adults and men so in their due time they could worship Him as was being done by all the males that surrounded me in that place of placid and joyful time of submission, exultation and worship.

And I kept on praying while seeing all the brokenness, the unction and the healing of so many weaknesses, afflictions and suffering that abounded all around.

My reflections from this moment on will be primordially graphic, in the hope and desire to take you through the sequence of images and sounds with this message:

Yes, it can be done! Yes, we can overcome turning ourselves into the men our present or future families need! Yes, it can be done! Nothing is impossible for God! Nothing is impossible if we walk with the Lord side by side, in a closer daily walk with Him!

Because when the storms wreck our lives?
When the hurricanes flatten down and destroy all our human deeds and little treasures?

Where could we go but to The Lord?

Give yourselves up to The Lord and turn yourselves into Palm Trees! They are not just a scenic part of idyllic scenarios!

Face the crisis as they do when the hurricanes try to bring them down!
Persevere and Survive! Even more… More than just surviving plant yourselves on your spiritual feet and conquer!
The Lord will be at your side in the crisis and He will be your strength in the Adversity and Disgrace!

Instead of resigning yourselves to be seen as the defeated and the victims change yourselves into living testimonies of His Grace and Mercy, poured upon you in the times of uncertainty, anguish and despair!

Wait upon the Lord! The time will come when you will be instead of just a promise of potentiality and growth…

You will become seeds and then ripe and luscious fruits filled with spiritual and cooling waters! As the coconuts of heavens as they are of the earth!

And then… in protective shading not only for your own blood and flesh but also for all those who will come to you as the bees come to the palm trees as the fountains of pollination and feeding!

So… in communion with God, your Creator, your Savior and your Lord, through your willing submission to Him and His Love and Discipline… !

You would be able to resist, supported by His Grace, all the hardships of life, and patiently and joyfully endure the afflicting stings of your carnal spirit and become the transforming instruments for those who will come to the shelter of your home during and after the insufferable blows of fortune or the uncontrollable breaking of the waves, the hurricanes and the storms of the worldly life!

As in Jeremiah 17: 7-8

In Jeremiah 17:5-6 The Lords says about the man who trust in mankind and forgets about Him that he will be like a bush in the desert and will live in stony wastes in the wilderness. Then, in verse 7 He blesses the man who trust Him and declares that he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes…

Once, years ago, while in the States and involved in wonderful Christian missionary endeavors, I had the opportunity of being invited to spend a weekend in a park and we rested all day long alongside a little and placid stream, with our heads on its shore under shading trees and our feet immersed in the coolest water we could expect in that worm summertime.

I felt “so happy” as I thought that would be the way of living while obeying God! I felt so distant from the city noises and thought that you probably would have to walk the streets but from time to time you would also be able to go away from its turbulences to rest as I was doing that day. It was a bucolic image of good times and success while extending your hands and opening your heart to the sufferers, the rejected and the abused of this world.

The last 6 years, being back in our native country Nicaragua, to serve the Lord by protecting children, we lived in a traditional neighborhood, just a block away from the residence of a former President and a very neat and cozy park known as Las Palmas (THE PALMS). But the Lord sent us back to our real homes, our family ones, in a similar middle class neighborhood both in Guatemala and El Salvador.

I thought I was enjoying again being by the side of another placid stream, getting ready for future missionary tasks. I was happily proclaiming, adding somehow to the Ecclesiastes that surely there is a time to give and a time to receive, and that we were just enjoying a well deserved warriors´ rest. But the Lord had a lesson coming while forcing me to face what I thought were spiritual attacks from the world trying to destroy our family happiness and way of living.

Just a few weeks ago I had to go back and stay with another one of my sons, just two blocks away to that park but in an opposite direction to my former place. My wife and I went for a stroll in the park with my son and his little daughter. What a shock to see so much garbage around and people sitting as this were the most usual sight to enjoy.

It sure there is a time to toil and a time to rest. A time to rejuvenate your inner strength! A time to be not just a tree but a palm tree, as the name of the place we were in, and not just a run of the mill one. And will you ask me why? I did not know it then but I came to know it just one morning after while waiting to cash some dollars in that neighborhood bank.

That morning while waiting for the bank to open I sat on the border of a flower bed just in front of a palm tree. A bee tried to rest a little bit on my face and this forced me to watch the busy back and forth flying of many other ones over the clump of a luscious palm blooming patch just in front of my eyes.

A sudden revelation just shocked me out of my seat. I got my camera and in a very clumsy way tried to catch the busy paths of the bees, and I realized that you can be like a tree in the midst of the noisy sidewalks of the streets, if you thirstily drink from the living waters of the Lord.

I realized that your destiny as a Christian is to become a blooming patch in such a palm tree to let the little bees of this world suck away the rejuvenated strength of your inner self so the former bees you nourished and the ones to come can become in time newer palm trees of the mercy of the Lord.

God is such a Friend besides being your Savior and your Lord that He never allows the “refining fire” of His allowed tests to burn you down to useless ashes. He invites you to walk through thunder, fire and floods, so you can walk over this world burning coals purifying your heart so you later on can show His Divine Character through you.

You don´t need the flowing waters of the worldly success, even in well intentioned Christian feats! If you dream of becoming a huge and luxuriant tree for all the bystanders to see, peacefully lying down with your feet in the cooling waters of recognition and respect, He will shake you off, trim you down, taking you to the hot sidewalks of the streets, to strengthen you and revitalize your inner self.

He will do it to show you that you can be a living palm tree for the bees to come and take away the honey of your hope and trust in Christ so they can soothe their hurting throats for being the little and the despised ones of this world.

He will do it so you can brighten the face and bring out the smiles of the expectant ones who applaud the nonsensical gibberish of the wandering clowns while dispiritedly keep on seeking an still uncertain path to any type of future...

as well as to encourage all those who have almost given up and have resigned themselves to live amongst the garbage and the filthy debris strewn around even in the coziest parks by the spoilers, the braggarts, the trashers and the insensitive abusers of this world.

The two sides of the coin! Life should be an exercise on righteousness…

Checking some of the messages my classmates send me, I found a wonderful continuance to my thoughts about the young and older girls of my country, and in them the ones in every culture compatible with our “Christian” understanding of a foundational commitment to righteousness and a mutual respect as the basis of a sensible and transcending individual and family values and behavior.

After doing so until, late last night, I went to bed. My wife of 46 years was deep in her sleep but when I rested by her side, she lazily woke up, kissed me and took my hand and placed it under her face as a living pillow. Then... placidly went to sleep again while I was wondering how blessed I have been, having found a girl I made a woman and a wife, who became a faithful companion and supporter, in the good, the bad and the worst circumstances of our life together.

This made me realize the priceless treasure of finding a girl with well founded moral values. I am not talking about a shy and timid one. She was vivacious, socializer, fun to be with, daring and adventurous. We were a favorite dancing couple in soirees and official government parties, being called to dance all type of songs, from soul and foxtrot to ardent and sensual Caribbean rhythms and cadences.

But she was a solid and a steady girl. And I was the first man and the only one in her life that I hope will not end until we reach the age of the 104 young at heart, and if the Lord allows it, even beyond that golden point.

It is not necessary to be a Christian to be able to realize how fundamental this is… poets, writers, photographers, lauding the women beauty does not have any other way to exalt the moral values of self and mutual appreciation, understanding, and love and respect…

But… in what is the most important aspect of all human relations… the transcending spiritual realm we must obligingly realize that there are 2 sides to the relational coin.

One... the imposed by the world through liberal approaches to freedom and its consumism oriented and female degrading fashions, even if we refuse to recognize it.

The present days uncontrolled craving for acceptance from your peers even if this requires giving up all your inner treasures, your self-esteem, your right to choose and not to be chosen, the right to wait to be courted, the right to say no, the right to be seen and treated with the utmost tenderness and respect.

The other one… your womanhood and motherhood, and your rightful place in society, side by side with your male counterpart, shoulder to shoulder in your combined efforts to walk together along the lively paths of your earthly existence on the way to the shores of the eternal kingdom and place of solace in the company of our God, Creator, Lord and Savior

But… I would like to ask you, my dear girls… is it necessary to renounce to your natural beauty and countenance just for the sake of temporary sensual sharing or acceptance?

Do you really think that you will be considered as the “for life partner and companion” by your temporary acquaintances?

You got a natural destiny: to give love to the future generations out of the love you will give and receive from your husband to be...

Just remember that you are intended to become wives and mothers as the cradle of the future.

How sad would it be that you, instead, were considered as the flirtatious woman of Sirah 26: 9-12! “By her eyelids and her haughty stare an unchaste wife can be recognized. Keep a strict watch over an unruly wife, lest, finding an opportunity, she make use of it;

Follow close if her eyes are bold, and be not surprised if she betrays you: As a thirsty traveler with eager mouth drinks from any water that he finds, So she settles down before every tent peg and opens her quiver for every arrow”.

If you are still a single and beautiful and freedom hungry girl, just replace the word “wife” for the generic “woman” and see how aptly the message applies to any every present daring, intentional or not, but always undiscerning behavior, yours or of your friends.

Don´t you think it would be and feel better to receive the praise and understanding of your future in laws and everyone in town, at least the ones whose opinion should count…? as in Proverbs 5: 18-19 “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love”.

Or the joyful praise from your partner in life´ friends, for having chosen you as the wife in Sirah 26: 1-4…? “Happy is the husband of a good wife, twice-lengthened are his days; A worthy wife brings joy to her husband, peaceful and full is his life. A good wife is a generous gift bestowed upon him who fears the LORD; be he rich or poor, his heart is content, and a smile is ever on his face.

Nothing best than what is real and ideal as it should be! Life should be an exercise in righteousness…

When analyzing the social struggles spectrum in any society we can approach the issues from the greater to the smaller, from the complex to the simpler ones. But for the purpose of our analysis our basic premise is that everything starts with the individual within his/her family environment.

Any structural change, advancement, recession, denial, compromising, perceptions and attitudes toward individual and family values will inevitably affect the community and the whole social fabric of intermingling material and spiritual concepts and the correspondent perceptions and behavior.

There is another undeniable premise. Every culture has its own matrix for the individual and family structural nature. Logically there will be similarities but there will always be a definite and specific one that must be analyze with the deepest respect avoiding the imposition of our own natural predispositions and prejudices born out of our particular cultural environment.

The final premise consequently should be that all similarities, differences, struggles and challenges, solidarity and support must be mutually respectful, bowing only to the higher than any social set of circumstances, which is the higher spiritual laws and designs of our Creator.

To start being specific, and being a Nicaraguan by birth even if one exposed to different customs and mores of different and varied societies, I will try to analyze our particular environment starting with what we could set as a desired and valued standard for comparison with all the perceived social, material and spiritual distortions affecting its struggling generations.

I refer myself to what has been and is being considered the traditional Nicaraguan family structure and behavior. The model we tried to instill in the hearts, minds and spirit of the children and former co-workers these past six years.

It has nothing to do with material advancement or lacking and unsatisfied needs. The solid values and structure do not depend on them. I have said time and time again that there can be a more solid family foundation in a humble home, where on the solid and well swept earthen floor real love, care and concern for each other flourish, than in any marble floored mansion where consumism, convenience, greed and ambition permeates the inner being of its inhabitants.

The family that I fondly remember is that one where lines or authority and respect, mutual acceptance and clearly defined lines of acceptable behavior were the rule of life. A family nucleus where you could count with each other for encouragement, protection and support!

Where hard work and faithfulness to your word as the ultimate expression of your personal beliefs were stronger than any coercive law!

Where women were respectfully loved and men were taught and ingrained themselves in the concepts and consequent and willful compliance with the precepts of responsibility, hard work, provision and support, and I say it again, natural, omnipresent and mutual respect.

It is against these parameters that we should compare and analyze the present social failures and conflicts. It is paramount to emphasize the constituting and essential values for our restoration and advancement as individual, families and societies.

For the girls, you all, the younger and the older abused ones: You will have a second chance! God will give you that! BUT… Respect yourselves! Learn to choose the best! Do not resign yourselves with what you feel is no good, just available! Do not accept to be chosen! Raise yourselves above the rationalized acceptance of less than desired, just acceptable circumstances! Abuse only temporarily affects your inner being! You can always overcome and become the woman of Proverbs chapter 31, Verses 26 to 30

You do not have to be a committed Christian to appreciate a good woman.

Next time I will address you boys! For the time being, you girls enjoy what follows.

Life should be an exercise on Righteousness, Daring and Discernment!

Very recently one of my friends sent me a series of messages where one of the most stunning statements was… Silencing the truth is worst than lying!

Silencing it to ourselves or others! Lying to or purposely deceiving ourselves or others! Out of convenience! To gain any kind of personal gain not on the path of righteousness! Even if it looks so to our compromising eyes! Or if what is usually done! Or if means riding the waves! Or if it is what is expected! Or because we rationalize the issue of compromising for the sake of some good to accomplish!

Usually, out of deference and desire to avoid misunderstandings and confrontations with ourselves when facing difficult or adverse circumstances, we state it and accept it as a valid or inevitable alternative to evade the issues, go along with other opinions or actions, or find a way to negotiate a middle way solution, without understanding or less of all accepting that experiences and their derived consequences and lessons are the natural fabric of life, and should be never evaded or forgotten so the same past mistakes are not repeated.

Even if “compromising” (conveniently made it mean to find a common or neutral way to face challenges and circumstances) is a valid alternative in the business and almost every way of life, we should always have in mind that life is an exercise on righteousness, daring vision, and discernment about the actions and decisions to make.

As the routine of the present days of resting is setting up in my spirit, my mind and my emotions, things and circumstances that have faded in my memory are coming back with a vividness that makes you wonder why and how you had been able to forget them.

At the present time we are staying in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, at my oldest son Robert´s home. It is a very nice upper middle class neighborhood. But I had not realized that it did lie just about 10 city blocks from the center square and market where 21 years ago, in the short term YWAM missionary training outreach we did evangelize, presented dramas, distributed Bibles, stayed in a nearby Theological Evangelical Institute, and were witnesses to many spiritual experiences.

Yesterday, I invited my wife and we did walk to the square and the market.

We were utterly amazed when seeing that things looked almost the same as 21 years ago. The same restaurants, the same vendor stalls, the same peace and fortitude in the faces of older and younger people alike that so strongly knocked down at the doors of our souls back in 1987.

I was specially moved by the placid countenance of a young girl, with a baby in her arms, who sold us a fruit delicacy by the dozen. And I say so because I am still wondering about the whys and hows of the hard, vacant, negatively resigned, aggressive stances and stares of so many people I recently witnessed during the last and past two months in my native country

Back in 1987, there were neither condominiums nor parks erected where we are presently living. It was just coffee land and exuberant vegetation all around! Just a merely 10 city blocks from the heart of the city where we flexed our missionary muscles for the first time in our lives!

Today, walking in the days early morning hours just 8 days before becoming a young 71 years old guy on my way to my 104 young at heart destination, I have been meditating, while enjoying the beautiful flowers, the already growing leaves and branches on the trees stumps leaves, and the shaded paths, I wondered how easy is to find rest and solace when we give up our worldly expectations to the Lord and enjoy the beautiful and simple and abundant examples of His wonderful creations.

I enjoyed walking along the paths of the little park, seeing mangoes and avocados fall from trees, listening to honking vehicles passing by, and taking pictures of the beautiful flowers and leaves, while some humble and probably unemployed poor and older people sat on the benches at such an early time of the day.

But what impressed me the most, was the peace I saw in their eyes and their stoical attitude towards life and hardships, as little flowers of resignation but not of despair, alongside the blooming ones that grow without caring for the social struggles of the day.

While enjoying all this it was that the statement above came strongly to my mind making me to resolve myself to write in a more comprehensive way about all the social and Christian experiences of my past.

Enjoy as I did the flowers and the leaves, and wait for the incoming postings in my blog.