Chris' Christian Blog

April 8, 2021

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Today is going to be a rough day for me. I have a colonoscopy tomorrow as well as another procedure and today is prep day. Anybody who has had either of these procedures can tell you that the preparation is worse than the procedures themselves. Let's all pray that the test finds some explanation for why I get sick every time I eat. It makes no difference if I eat a lot or eat just a little I am sick for two hours after eating.

Deuteronomy 281-14
1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:
2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
7 The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.
8 The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
9 The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways.
10 And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee.
11 And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
12 The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.
13 And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:
14 And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

This is the promise of blessing to those who are the people of God. We are not only blessed but overtaken by blessings. If our life is lacking in blessing, what can we do to obtain these blessings from the Lord? How are we blessed?

This passage of scripture begins what theologians refer to as the blessings and curses. To represent the equality of the application of each God ordered six of the tribes of Israel to stand on Mt. Horeb reading the blessings and six of the tribes to stand on Mt. Geriziam reading the curses. They were to do this until they realized that keeping God's commandments would result in being blessed and disobeying the commandments would result in being cursed. Ultimately they disobeyed and all the curses came to pass including the exile of the remnant in 586 BC. I say the remnant because most of them died horrible deaths at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. God was not joking when He said that as much as He would bless His followers He would also equally curse His followers for willful disobedience.

We were cruising through the galaxy today when we received a call that Angus is ill. Check out

Addiction  (XGC) One Man's Deadly Addiction #1952792 by Angus

and send him some love.

I am not a great fan of horror. Some of my own best stories are horror an d they appear in my book "Teatime" which is being published now. However, I do not care for reading horror as I often have PTSD related nightmares anyway and do not need to add to it. However, Angus is a friend of mine, though I have only briefly known him on WDC. I hear he is really ill after having had a stroke. My heart and prayers go out to him.

Prompt: "Please use these words in your blog: color, growth ,dish,, federation, honor, shift and suffering."

I have a good fried who is proud of the color of our flag. He is always saying that we are losing that color because of the politics and policies being issued now. I see little growth for our nation right now unless it be inflation which will grow tremendously due to spending. The spending is necessary though because people need money. It is a dish we have to serve and a dish we will ultimately regret. Our federation is founded on the ideals of differences and the ability to express those differences. I disagree with my friend when he says we are being taken over by communists and socialists. We are only allowing people with different opinions the right to express those opinions. We have honor on our side. I feel the left will honor the Constitution in their own way just as the right will honor it in their way. We will shift power from time to time but our federation will remain intact. There will always be one side or the other suffering the fear of the other. America will survive.

"Prompt: What things in your life do you wish to improve upon?"

Wow! That is a good question. I guess if I had to choose something to improve on right now it would be my health. I am 59 years young. I'll be 60 in a couple of months. I have a lot of minor health problems that slow me down. My back and legs are bad so that if I walk more than two hundred feet I have to stop and wait for the pain to subside and to catch my breath. The breathing part is because I am 100 pounds overweight. My stomach is also bad, but hopefully I will know tomorrow what is wrong with it. I have an endoscopy and colonoscopy tomorrow. Hopefully they can figure out why I get sick about half-an-hour after eating, whether I eat one bite or a big meal.

Aside from my health, I have a good life. I do wish I could improve on my time management skills. It seems the day flies by and I don't always accomplish everything I wish. I spend an extraordinary amount of time on my blog every day but I am committed to it. If I typed faster it may help. My eye hand coordination is screwed up due to a traumatic brain injury and I type slowly. If I did not do my blog I would have plenty of time. I even tried Dragonspeak but could not get it trained to understand me. I would say something like "The cat walked across the road."
It would type something like "The hand talked to the toad" or something else completely unrelated. I finally gave that up and went back to typing. Besides, I would not know how to use disability software here anyway.

All in all, I enjoy my life. I serve as Chaplain of the WV Veterans Home and I also serve as a peer recovery support specialist there. I operate a peer support group called Vets Helping Vets. It is a classroom style setting where I present lectures on different people/relationship skills such as active listening and anger management. I enjoy doing it and it helps others improve their lives. If I could improve on attendance at it I would be very happy, but it is hard to get people who suffer from PTSD and other anxiety disorders to get involved in anything that requires them to leave their rooms.

The main thing I want to improve on is me. I want to be a better person and better Christian.