In That Day

On September 25, 2003, I had a dream that I was sitting on a pile of clouds with a little boy [whom I didn't know] trying to comfort that boy and there was a huge Presence [no face, I just felt something next to me but couldn't see anything that seemed to comfort me in return]. The boy and I were looking at a small ball from a distance that looked like our planet Earth, with orange hue all around it [kind of like the picture here] and smokes were billowing from different parts.

I'm writing about this today, no! not to interpret that dream but to let you know of how joyful I am that when we trust in Jesus, we have that security that He gives that no matter what happens all around us, when He returns [the second time around] that it is something to look forward to. I was inspired to write this song the following day. The last part of the song, the Lord had given me a year later.

Isaiah 12:1-2 -"In that day you will sing: "Praise the Lord! He was angry with me, but now He comforts me. See, God has come to save me. I will trust in Him and not be afraid. The Lord God is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation." [Life Application Bible].

In That Day

Lord, despite me feeling low

When the trials seem too much to overcome

But I want the whole world to know

I'll be waiting 'til that time when You come

Chorus:

In that day, I will sing "Hallelujah" to my King

He will come to save me

I will put my trust only in Jesus Christ

He will soothe my pains

And I'll go home with Him

In that day....

Now, my heart is filled with joy

Knowing that You're always there for me

But whatever trial comes my way

I'll find my strength from You when I pray

[repeat Chorus]

He will soothe my pains

And I'll go home with Him....in that day....

No! Not 7 But "8"

After cleaning and making the house spic 'n span [I try...], off to the grocery my son and I went to get a few things. He's going back to school tomorrow. He's such a big help.

When I logged in and started reading some posts, sister Alleluiabelle had tagged me with her latest post! I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to do this, I think I just didn't know if I would come up with eight things. But I want to thank you sister Alleluiabelle for making me a part of it. I think it's a great way to know more about each other and the other bloggers. If you haven't passed by sister Alleluiabelle's blog site, please do so and be blessed with her deep thoughts and heartfelt journey as she humbly serves and seeks the Lord in her ways.

To do this "8 Things" Tag, you just:

- Mention the person who tagged you.

- Complete the list of 8's.

- Tag 8 of your wonderful blogging friends

- Go tell them that you tagged them.

"8" Things I Look Forward To:

1. To "retire" in the Kingdom where my citizenship belongs

2. To have a "godly" leader in all branches of government and other institutions

3. For more people to know about Christ and His gift of salvation

4. For the Lord to lead me where He really wants me so I can serve Him to my fullest capacity

5. For my neck pain [I had a neck injury from work in 1997] to vanish

6. To grow old with my dear husband gracefully as we watch our son grow up and mature

7. To enjoy each day knowing God is always there no matter what trials will come in my way

8. To be able to keep writing for the Lord and composing songs for His glory

"8" Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Woke up late and feeling that we would be late for the fellowship, had devotion with my family

2. After having 2 cups of caffeine, realizing yes, we could make it! [with hubby and son], rushed to get ready for the fellowship that started at 09:30 a.m.

3. Had lunch at Olive Garden. I ate a bowl of salad and almost finished my "Seafood Alfredo"

4. Too hot so I just relaxed with my family up in the loft and started reading a little bit from a new book I got the other day about writing Christian fictions

5. "zzz" - Just had a little nap, with the book almost falling on my face

6. Made coffee [decaf] for dinner. That was all I had because I ate too much for lunch. I love this decaf medium roast coffee from Ikea

7. Pulled a little bit of little weeds that grew through the cracks on the side yard

8. Blogged and read others' because they encourage me until my eyelids felt heavy

"8" Shows I Watch:

I'm not really much of a tv fanatic. I'm spending more time in the computer or playing with my guitar or reading the Bible and other books. But I do enjoy it so much when I visit my best friend and we watch shows at their house like:

1. American Idol

2. The Bachelor/ Bachelorette [if on]

3. CSI

4. Jeopardy

5. News

6. Movies [whatever good ones are showing]

7. Make over shows

8. Foodnetwork

"8" Bloggers Tagged:

Instead of mentioning my favorite bloggers [as I have a lot!], I welcome you instead, yes, "you" who's reading it right now and please feel free to join and be tagged by "me" because I want to know more about you.

Thank you for passing by and God bless all of you...Thanks again sister Alleluiabelle. This was fun.

Deceiving Look [The Blue Box]

Psalm 103:6 -"The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed."

Psalm 140:12 -"I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy."

Luke 18:17 -"And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?"

I received a nice gift box from my husband the other day. He said there was no reason for that but "just because..." No! It wasn't my birthday yet.

I stripped the nice ribbon slowly and opened the nice box, taking a peek with much anticipation and thrill. To my surprise! There was a rotten egg inside the box. It wasn't even funny. I got upset! Why would he do that? He said, "I don't know..."as he started scratching his head. My heart just sank when he said that. "How could you not know the reason before putting that egg inside that box?," I asked him in disbelief.

Looks can be deceiving. The nice gift box that I thought would have a nice surprise inside contained something that was "rotting".

Dear friends, the above event was only imaginary... But I was upset when I read this particular "true" story from sister Andrea's blog. Please check out her post about the "Blue Box" if you have an extra time.

The 11 year old boy who has dyslexia was punished by the teacher by putting him behind that "blue box" that seemed nice on the outside. This was done in front of the whole class and he was put on "silent lunch" and no recess for 2 days. When that boy's parents confronted the school, no reason was given up to this writing time why that punishment was done.

Like my imaginary story of opening a nice gift box and finding a "rotten egg" inside, this boy must have felt like that [rotten inside] because of this kind of harsh treatment. None of us will understand the kind of humiliation he had to endure. None of us will ever imagine what hurtful and damaging thoughts were going on in his mind. None of us will ever know the pain his heart was feeling.

Look at how it looked like behind that nice blue box:

When his parents brought him to the doctor, in tears, the boy told the doctor, "I am just retarded. There is no hope for me."

Dyslexia in psychology is a developmental disability in reading or spelling but it is not an intellectual disability. That boy doesn't have an incapacitated mental state! He might have difficulty reading or hearing but he has a mind that understands! But whether that boy has dyslexia or not and God knows how many other children were treated to sit behind that blue box, this is an act that is detrimental to these children's well-being.

As most of you already know about this, please continue lifting this family and that this form of punishment should be stopped. Pray that the boy's parents would get an answer to why the school resorted to this form of punishment. Most of all, pray for the boy, Colton, to be restored by the healing touch of our dear Lord.

Let the boy's words "There is no hope for me..." echo in your hearts so that we can continue to petition for him until our prayers are answered that "there is hope Colton...there is..." God bless.

Let the Spirit of the Lord

"I'll see you at our Human Resources. Bring your Union Rep with you."

Those were the words of this particular manager in a hospital where a dear friend of mine has been working for over 10 years. Not because I am her friend that's why I'm defending her, but it's even harder that I'm her friend yet I can't do anything to help her out except to lift her up in my prayers. Being a nurse like her, I knew in my heart that she didn't do anything wrong and that she saved someone's life. That's our job is to be an advocate for our patients, even if our actions will be against doctors' orders, in order for us to protect the patients' health status and provide them a safe, nurturing environment.

Last month, there was a patient with subarachnoid bleeding [bleeding in the brain]. His blood pressure started going higher and he constantly complained of unrelieved headache. The neurosurgeon had an order the day before to discharge this patient that morning, when Anna [my friend] took over from the night shift nurse to care for this patient.

She immediately called the Pain Team and had asked to evaluate the patient's need for pain relief. When the patient's pain subsided, she placed one phone call after another to the neurosurgeon's answering service [3x at least] to make him aware about the patient's change in his health status. But the doctor never called her back. The last time that she called, the answering service told her to hold the patient's discharge until the doctor was able to call her back.

With everything that had occurred, Anna wrote it in her nurse's notes. She had written an order for the doctor [which the doctor can sign later] to hold the patient's discharge.

When the other [medical] doctor came, he was the one who ordered for a CT scan [special x-ray that shows better results than an ordinary x-ray]. The result showed that the patient continued to bleed. That explained why he was having headache still.

The neurosurgeon showed up the following day, upset and wanted to know who the nurse was because within the nurse's scope of care, nurses can't write an order for the doctor without talking to them. The nurse manager added to this building up emotional displeasure [I say this was an "ego at its best!"].

The nurse manager decided to bring Anna to Human Resources because she felt that she violated that scope of care.

I could see if Anna had written an order for a medication that was lethal or some intervention that hurt the patient. She actually saved the patient's life and actually saved that doctor's improper lack of care as he hasn't responded to the calls placed to his answering service at a time when the patient was undergoing a change in his status. The patient ended up being hospitalized for a few more days. The whole time, the nurse manager told her bigger boss about Anna "writing the order without the doctor's knowledge" but didn't really give the whole picture of what precipitated her action.

Despite all the mixed emotions of fear, confusion, being angry about an accusation that has no basis at all, and feeling harassed, I knew that God would protect her when we started praying together and to God's hands, she placed all those emotions.

Nothing happened when her manager brought her to Human Resources. She was telling me that though it was expected that the Management would not say anything against their managers, they had a look like this case should not have been brought up to their desk.

There are so many injustices in this world. Even us, as Christians, sometimes, we wish for a quick judgment and destruction on wicked people. We forget that God is always merciful, slow to anger, always with unfailing love. He is just.

"Jonah got upset when the people of Nineveh came into mourning and repentance when he warned them, as he was sent by the Lord for He wanted this "great city" to be saved. He was so upset that he went to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under and waited to see if anything would happen to Nineveh and its people."

God made a leafy plant to grow to protect him from the heat of the sun. The next day, He prepared a worm that ate the stem so the plant died and Jonah grew faint and wished to die when the sun got so hot. "Death is better than this!," exclaimed Jonah. When God asked him if it was right for him to be angry because the plant died, Jonah replied, "Yes, even angry enough to die."

The Lord said, "You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. And a plant is only, at best, short lived. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?" [Jonah 4:1-10; Life Application Bible].

We can only hope for the Lord's actions on things. Though our hearts might feel heavy with the evilness that surround us, we must allow Him to do His part in finishing the work that He started in each of us. When we feel like quitting, spiritually drained out, bruised, beaten, remember that we can accomplish everything "only by His might and grace"....

I wrote this song on 8/7/03. As I got transferred from one detention center to another one. I felt heavy because I didn't want to get out of my comfort zone. Until I let go and "let God..."

Spirit of Lord

Lord, how can I go on?
How can I do Your will
Without backing out on my own?
It's hard, Oh Lord,
I cry for everyone
Who does not follow Your plans

Chorus:

Spirit of Lord, come and fill our hearts
Let Your love overflow and guide us
Spirit of Lord, come and live in us
Let Your Works shine
Glory is Yours always, Spirit of Lord...

Lord, sometimes I don't understand
But I want Your will
So give me the strength
It's hard, Oh Lord
But I wanna' be a servant to Your plans

[repeat Chorus]...

rrrs 8/7/03 1109 hrs.