Awake & Understanding

When we were called into farming, we had a lot of information. We couldn't say,"I had no idea what I was getting into" because we had read all the books. Do you want to know something, though? No two-dimensional book could have possibly prepared me for the reality of what we were about to do. All the books could do was give us some vague clues as to what you were about to embark upon so that we weren't ready to throw in the towel after a day.

There is a vast difference between theory and reality. Many times, we are spoon fed an idea only to find out that the experience is entirely different. When I was a child behind a school desk, I learned about a bunch of "stuff". For instance, there was the country of Canada....but it was nothing like actually being in Canada. Being told to not touch poison ivy because it'll make you break out in an itchy rash is no comparison to actually stumbling upon the plant and experiencing the outbreak yourself. From that point forward, you will KNOW that plant and you will have intense motivation for avoiding it.

"I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be god-like. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came--oh, my beautiful love! -- and you taught me what reality really is. For the first time in my life, I saw the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. For the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love! My love! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. What have I to do with the puppets of a play?" - Oscar Wilde (Sybil's monologue from 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray')

When Christ moves into our life, the pretense that we were okay beforehand falls away. The whole world begins to look differently. When we thought we had loved people before, we realize that we were in a vicious cycle of deluding not only ourselves, but the person we thought we loved. EVERYTHING changes.

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child; now that I have become a man (woman), I have finished with childish ways. For now we see obscurely in a mirror, but then it will be face to face. Now I know partly; then I will know fully, just as God has fully known me." - 1 Corinthians 13:11&12

Going to Canada taught me about Canada. Owning goats taught me about goats. Contracting sicknesses taught me about the sickness.

****************** and knowing Yeshua******************* the Glorious One******************* has taught me love **************

"I love you, and if you can always, as it were, feel my pulsebeat, you will know many things the knowledge of which will give you sustaining strength. I bare your sins and I wish to carry your burdens. You may have the gift of a light and merry heart. My love bower is the place where you will find it, for My love dispels all fear and is a cure for every ill. Lay your head upon My breast and lose yourself in Me. You shall experience resurrection life and peace; the joy of the Lord shall become your strength; and wells of salvation will be opened within you." - Frances J. Roberts 'Come Away, My Beloved'