5/27/2022

The rocky shores of Maine are part of me

Or am I really part of the wave beaten shore

Does my heart beat in time with the waves

Or the crashing thunder of the rocky shore

Is my life widened by the Promenade view

With the width and depth of the Atlantic

Or narrowed by Portland streets like Alder

With a life of poverty making a soul sick

A biological father who left to not return

Not knowing if not wanted or uncaring

What part does this betrayal fit in me

How harmful was this betrayal bearing

Caroline my sister dies of pneumonia

So young, her life was hardly begun

Preston my brother entered life dead

His tiny life before beginning is done

Dad from West Virginia comes to our aide

Marries my Mom and chooses me as son

Later to West Virginia this Mainer does go

A new chapter of my life has now begun

Do not feel I belong to either family

I am not either a Preston or Ramsey

Lost and alone even with a family

Not Preston, Keene or even Ramsey

Alcohol dulls the emptiness and pain

But in the end harms more than gain

Destroyed and dying from my stain

Used to help but multiplies the pain

With three months to live I do not care

In dying me to live do not hope to dare

To hell I go with all the chains I wear

Blood attacks and pain I cannot bear

In West Virginia woman takes to pray

I know God will not hear as they pray

“Do you have faith as for you we pray”

No I said “We have faith for you to pray”

Healing begins as my pain goes away

I kneel and pray my stain goes away

So much hurt and pain does roll away

Fear and loneliness God takes away

Maine or West Virginia not my home

And now Heaven do I call my home

For any place can never really be home

To see the face of Jesus will be my home

God has given the gift of a real family

His body of believers form my family

With Bonnie we create a new family

As Perkins and Ramsey create family

Told unable to ever able to be a father

With Bonnie three Children am father

Sarah, Jonathan and Rebecca am father

And Levi Bennett with Sarah am father

Better father to children could have been

A much better husband I should have been

Past no excuse for what I have not been

Ask forgiveness for what I have been

After 32 years as pastor become disabled

Lost my congregation because disabled

God calls to serve even though disabled

Find God’s great strength being disabled

 

5/26/2022

Prayer is my breathing You in my Heart and then You breathing out.

Prayer is a friend enjoying time with a Friend.

Prayer is God finishing your sentence and beginning the next one.

Prayer is unloading my guilt, fear and sin onto He who already bore it.

Prayer is "bringing the pains of earth to heaven’s door."

Prayer is at its best when you run out of words.

Prayer is when You hug me and I can make You smile.

Prayer let's God peel the scales of self from my eyes to see others and their pain.

Prayer opens me to see the glory of God rather than the power of evil.

Prayer let's me touch people around the world with the power of God.

Prayer makes me homesick for heaven, a place I long to be.

Prayer is telling God before anyone else.

Prayer is releasing Gods' holy power into a fallen and broken world.

Prayer is the source of power, grace, love, faith and hope in Jesus Christ.

Prayer is humbly admitting I can't and that I need God.

Prayer is God's way of helping us to love our enemies. It is hard to hate someone you are really praying for.

Prayer is God's attempt to remind me everything He did was so He could walk with me again.

Prayer is despair seeking hope and joy expressed to He who is the source.

Prayer is revealing your heart to He who knows it best.

Prayer is how God makes you more like Him.

Prayer is how you touch the glory of God!

Prayer is sitting in your Daddy's lap!

Prayer in not something a Christian can do but something we must!

Prayer is more than what you do, it is who you are!

Prayer is freedom for the prisoners, healing for the sick, love for the lonely, and life for the dying.

Prayer is our introduction to God and who we really are.

Prayer is how we discover who God wants us to be.

Prayer is my attempt to reach God who already reached out to me.

Prayer is when the Trinity is experienced as I pray to the Father, by the Holy Spirit in the Name and authority of Jesus Christ!

Prayer unites me with those I pray with in an intimate way.

 

5/25/2022

Hope

Is a four-letter word

Is needed by everyone

Comes from the cross

Helps us keep on

 

5/24/2022

Grief

Grief tears like a knife

Bringing sorrow and strife

It rips at our inner heart

Shredding us each apart

Tears burn bringing pain

Brought about by sins stain

What can we do to stop

This pain causes us to drop

On our knees we must fall

Is this the end of us all

Fear makes our heart cold

Will we ever grow old

With age also comes fear

Age brings pain very near

Left alone death of love

Is there really hope above

Grief makes an anger burn

From God can make turn

What can stop my rage

Going from stage to stage

Is hope ever really there

Does Someone really care

Questions come in the night

Never answered by our fright

 

5/23/2022 The clouds slide by constantly changing from shape to shape as they merge and slip apart. Colors change from an angelic glowing white to a gray at the bottom to an angry black lit by lighting within them.

Sun, moon, stars and even the calming shade of blue are hidden as the clouds wink them away. We are at the mercy of the clouds to see beyond our planet and the expanded gazing at creations expanse.

But the clouds themselves are a window to creation as we gaze at the fluid motion and see creation is also fluid as even the mountains flow by wind, rain, ice and sun.

Clouds are a promise of rain and of God's rainbow promise the floods will not overwhelm our world again. Clouds can remind us of the hope and grace of God over us each day.

 

5/22/2022 Sunday has come again and some may think this is a time to ‘refill’ our lives with hope, grace and strength but this is the opposite of the truth. Throughout this last week God has surrounded and even enveloped you in every blessing needed and many wanted. (Except those wants that are harmful.) Sunday is our time to gather in thanksgiving, praise and worship acknowledging God’s power, love and faithful. We do also gather and ask God to bless those in need but to be able to ask in the strength of faith we first need to acknowledge and be humbled by who God is and our desperate need for Him!!!

(The reason know is in bold is to recognize so we can acknowledge all God has done we much seek and come to know what they are!)

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

Blessings

“We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing”

To cry out to God what we want Him to hear

Will we know when we receive His blessing

Or to us a horrible curse will it appear

The Giver must always decide the blessing

Or the recipient will limit them by fear

Look to God to ordain your daily blessing

And wait and see God’s own glory appear

5/23/2022

 

5/21/2022

Hope surrounds you

and God will reveal

God will open eyes

if we to Him appeal

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Grace surrounds you

and God will reveal

God will open eyes

if we to Him appeal

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

5/20/2022 Today some will say TGIF, Thank God It’s Friday! But the need for hope and grace does not lessen on any day. For many in our world grace and hope are needed with each breath. Take time this weekend to pray those who need hope and grace will discover it surrounds them. This will not sadden or wreck your weekend. Thinking and praying for others can help you discover grace and hope surrounds you and your family.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

 5/19/2022 The last couple of weeks have been a time of pain like I have not experienced since I received my spinal stimulater. With severe pain the ‘demons’ in our lives are set free to wreck havoc. You are not alone. Even if you do not believe in God others going through it and many, like me, pray for those who go through the same thing. I wrote this years ago and I realized expressing your pain does not make you weak but can even help strengthen others.

Where did I go wrong

When did I forget the song

Forgot the way how long

Used to be so strong

When I sang the song

But now all is wrong

Been weary so very long

No longer I belong

Been away too long

Need a very new song

Strength to sing my song

Been weary too long

 5/18/2022 Today I was supposed to meet with my group but it could not be held. It is funny how much I missed going. How much I missed them. But maybe it is not so unusual. We are a group who have joined together to war against the struggles in our lives and under duress and warfare people can become close. That is my thought on hope and grace.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

5/17/2022 Grief is a terrible thing to face. Once while watching one of the hundreds of families I knew going through grief I angrily demanded to know why it is so painful when someone dies. God’s reply was quiet and simple. “You were not created to go through the loss of someone you love because I created you to live forever.” I realized grief is the result of our fall and sin. I was humbled. I was indeed grief stricken.

The hope is since this is not a ‘curse from God’ we can receive comfort from God!!!

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Grace is God’s answer to our death by offering grace through Jesus Christ. Even our being kicked out of the Garden of Eden was grace. Can you imagine what would happen if we were able eat of the tree of life? By now the earth would be full of warehouses of those wanting to die but could not.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

5/16/2022

Need love

More than things

More than food

More than water

More than air

Need love

Words of pain

Word of fear

Words of stain

Words so dear

Love explodes

Knocking down walls

Expanding lives

Pushing out hearts

Crumbling fears

Destroying hatred

Growing Charity

Crashing doubts

Exploding Love

 

5/15/2022 Yes, it is about hope again. We must not get bored talking about what is important. Have you lived without hope for so long you no longer know what it is or even that you miss it? As the saying goes “Don’t lose hope!”

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

If you have a hymnal look at how many songs sing about grace. Grace is essential to all of life including all of Creation. We talk about nature and natural but nothing is natural since the fall. Grace allows Creation to flow along even though horribly broken by sin. Grace truly is amazing!!!

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

 5/14/2022

Hope lives even today

Worn thin by the fray

Fear like wolves in the way

Causing us from hope to stray

Left to weaken every day

Hard by hope we must stay

Jesus Light from night to Day

Hope renewed by the Way

5/13/2022 Is hope important to you? If it is, where do you find hope? How do you allow hope to work in your life? Is hope an absence of fear or despair?

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Is grace really possible? Can people actually treat others with grace? Why does there seem to be a shortage of grace shared with others?

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

Seek answers and you will find them!!!

 

5/12/2022 Hope is not ignoring the bad in us and surrounds us. Hope is found in knowing who and what we are and as the song by Bill Gaither says “the One who knows me best loves me most.” In your bad see God’s hope and grace waiting for you to discover. Here is one of my pains and the hope I have.

My children hurt my children ail

As a father I do fail

My children cry my children sad

As a father I am bad

My children grow my children go

As a father I was slow

Forgive me Father I have sinned

Be their Father in the end

 

 5/11/2022 Over the years God has used many different groups of people to encourage hope in my life. The times when I struggled the most was when I did not have a group of men I could share and care with. The source of all hope is God but others can also help us discover the hope which is already there.

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

God is the not just the founder of grace but is grace. God’s plan is for the grace we receive to be shared with and to others so grace will be revealed even to those who do not know God.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

Receive hope then share hope

Receive grace then share grace

Do this for the glory of God

Do this out of love for God

5/10/2022 Have you ever had a song you could not get out of your mind? All of a sudden you would be singing it and even worse at times you sing it out loud. With others around. Yesterday it was a Christmas song and I wondered why a Christmas song in May? That brought hope and grace to mind.

With Christmas (Christ in the flesh) we see the promise to Adam and Eve fulfilled with the birth of Jesus and the hope of so many billions of people came true. Hope was made sight in the baby Jesus who came into our cold dark world to be our Light! And now we have the hope Jesus will return and set everything right!!!

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

With Christmas the seed of Easter is planted and through grace the hope becomes that God’s grace will purchase us from sin so we can be part of God setting everything right!!!

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

5/9/2022

Orchestra

Music rises high and low

Seeds of life it does sow

Learn things need to know

As into life you do go

In harmony may life grow

Passing on all you know

Seeds of life you must sow

In life’s concert you will flow

 

5/8/2022 Sunday is a day of hope. God’s children gather to celebrate their hope because “Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners.”

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

“Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners” defines grace as we can have life because Jesus died in our place for our sin! Grace really is amazing.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

Today is Mother’s Day and it is a time to remember those who made such a difference in our lives. But always remember for some their mothers and fathers made a terrible difference in their lives and were the source of so much pain, humiliation and suffering. I wonder if that is why God commands us to “honor” our parents rather than to love them?

5/7/2022

Why

Why is a question we ask

It keeps us from our task

In pity we do like to bask

So a question we do ask

God’s fault we do ask

Our fault we don’t ask

Does God care we ask

Why care we don’t ask

No longer in pity do bask

No more questions ask

Where should I go can ask

To get you to appointed task

 

5/6/2022 Have you ever wondered if you have been so bad God can no longer forgive you? My Father-in-law would respond “if you can ask if you have lost your salvation you have not lost your relationship with God. Only when you no longer ask or care can you know you desire the world more than God.” Ask. Please ask.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

5/5/2022 I will try to remember this correctly. “There are many do’s and don’ts in the Bible. We try to not do the don’ts but we still do them. So maybe we should spend our time doing the do’s and then we will have less time to do the don’ts.”

Or as I remember in a song “accentuate the positive”.

I can almost hear people saying this is too simple and that is why I often miss the Gospel. I try to make everything harder when it is God desires who redeems us and makes us worthy to enter into God’s presence with praise and then to do the do’s to bring glory to God.

In my life I failed at the simplicity and lost the Gospel in trying to be rather than receive and giving too much room to the negative – the evil. Please do not make the same mistake I did and receive what you do not deserve from the God who still cries “Where are you?”

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

5/4/2022 How have you discovered hope when life seems beyond hope? If you are still alive at least a tiny bit of hope is necessary, so where is it? Even when we think hope is gone look for that tiny seed or grain which is still there. Then nourish it!!!

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Over the years I have discovered there are things I can do and there are God things. For Christians or those who are lost grace is a God thing. But an easy way for those without God to know grace is probably what you want to do or be the least!

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

5/3/2022 If these entries seem to imply I have got it figured out you are wrong because all these entries are for me and not just for anyone else. They are what I need to hear so I will not forget and fail. When you fall on your face and fanny at the same time (not impossible as I am sure some others have also experienced) you have three choices.

One, you can just lay there and let life run over you.

Two, you can look down and become what others say you are.

Three, you can look up where help, hope and grace is found.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

5/2/2022 Some days it is hard to write about hope and grace. Or should I say harder. There are days – even weeks where grace and hope are somewhere just beyond sight. But I cannot, must not forget to stand again and see them around me. Some say victory is getting up one more time than you are knocked down. But maybe it is just getting up. Getting up now.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

5/1/2022 Today is Sunday and many see this day as a ‘little Easter’. On Sunday we see part of hope fulfilled and an eternal grace as death is redeemed into life. Today we celebrate God does not give life, light, love and so much more but God IS!

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

4/30/2022 Do I have hope? If not, do I hope in hope? Even more, can I hope beyond hope?

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Is grace just being nice? Is grace just forgetting? Is grace just forgiving? What is the grace God offers to you like?

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

4/29/2022 When the earth is scorched and there are no crops to eat. When herds and flocks die and meat disappears. When war sounds around you. When it seems evil is overcoming good. That is when you should go to the book of Habakkuk.

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

To fallen humans grace is impossible but God reveals grace to all even more than He gives it. All can know to offer grace without excuse.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

4/28/2022 As you go through your day is hope part of it? Do you look for hope? Do you seek hope?

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Grace is most necessary when we least want to offer it. The Gospel has a clause in it that we are extended grace to the degree we extend it.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.