Let Your Light Shine Before Others

Are you a light to all in the house?

In Matthew, Yashua has a pretty clear opinion on how visible our light should be: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” – 5:14-16

How many of us are actually holding true to this teaching and emanating the light of Yahweh to the world?

Back in December of 2013, I touched on this topic. However, that post was more focused on standing up for what was right in the face of unrighteousness. What I am trying to focus on now is living a life filled with light.

1 John 1:5 helps teach us what that entails: God is light. So letting our light shine before others, would be letting our God shine before others. God is also defined as Love in 1 John 4:8. So, letting our light shine before others, could also entail letting our love shine before others. For God is love just as he is light. Moreover, it is both together, for letting our love shine before others is to let our God shine before others.

This would pose another idea, if we are to take that shining our light is producing love as truth, then that would also mean that love would produce good works, for it is through others seeing the good works that they give glory to our Father in heaven.

That would suggest that love is not a feeling or emotion, but an action. An action with visible results. Can people see the works of your love? Or do you only “love” on the inside?

So, I ask again, are you a light to all in the house? Are you a beacon of love to everyone that sees you? Would the witnessing of your life cause the glorifying of God?

Or, have you taken on the likeness of the world, so that when others see you they just see the same world that they have always seen?

No one claims it to be easy and would create a “happy” life. Perhaps this is why directly before Yashua teaches this lesson, he blesses those who mourn, who are merciful, who are meek (humble), who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are pure in heart, who are PERSECUTED. He blesses those who are persecuted, because he knows that following his teachings will bring persecution and this is supported in several other scriptures. He goes to the extreme of telling us to rejoice and be glad when others revile us and persecute us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely on his account.

If you are actively shining your light on the world, persecution is sure to follow.

If you aren’t being persecuted on Yashua’s behalf. Maybe you should ask yourself, why not?

I am Beautiful

Can you look in the mirror and say that you are beautiful?

 

I was re-reading my post here and felt the need to elaborate and clarify. I am at a point now where I know that I feel beautiful. I have no idea if anything has changed so that others perceive me this way, but something has changed within me. I can appreciate how beautiful I am from the tips of my fuzzy toes to every single hair that likes to frizz after being brushed- I am dazzling.

 

I smile when I catch my reflection in the mirror, because I like what I see. I love the fire that flickers in my eyes and the joy that twitches at my lips. When I gaze into the mirror I am not distracted by “flaws”, but empowered by the determination that cloaks my being.

 

I used to not be able to walk by a window front without looking in disgust at a blemish or a dreaded pimple that dared to rear its hideous head. I used to be petrified if I walked into the bathroom after being with company and realizing that my hair was a disheveled heap that had slowly escaped the binds of the elastic band that promised a prim and proper bun. I used to see ugly in myself every single time I looked, because I felt miserable and wretched at my core.

 

But I didn’t have to stay there! Yahweh showed me a light, a light that had always been there that I was too preoccupied to see; and in that light was a warming glow of love that can heal every wound you have ever suffered- and I started to heal.

 

I am still healing, but the thing is: I am in love with the healing. I don’t need the end result right now, I am so enamored by the shear adventure the journey to get there has to offer. Each day offers a new piece of the new me. Each day offers choices to embrace old broken habits or make new ones to be proud of. And even if I stumble and fall and scrap my knee and break my nose, I know that my Father will be standing there patiently and with love offering His hand to help me back up.

 

I refuse to give up or go back. I don’t care how many times I fall down, I will get back up and continue on this wonderful path I  never imagined having the pleasure to walk. Because I can see the beauty in God’s creations, I can see the beauty He put into making me.

 

I know that I am beautiful, because I was made in His likeness and Yahweh is the most beautiful thing to behold, even if all you can see is the after glow of His love.

Memory of the life that could have been

I am shutting down my blog “Tales of the Field” that was to chronicle my journey as a budding EMT and Firefighter since the last embers of that dream have burned out.

However, I wish to keep the memory of the experience close to my heart and possibly spread a little joy with it. I know I will live a new dream and as long as I keep living I will always be able to find passion within myself.

This is a re-post from January 19, 2012:

“Receiving my acceptance letter to the new member academy at the firehouse was a joyous moment that marked the beginning of my career in the emergency medicine services. My first day was a bit of a wake-up call. Imagine my surprise when I was the only female, at least a head shorter than everybody else, and overall lacking in girth.

You see, I had found one of the only firehouses in the area that accepted people that were medically certified that weren’t actual fire fighters. The only catch was, by the end of the academy you needed to have a fire skill.

So, it was me the little EMT-B amongst all these big ole wannabe fire fighters. I was quickly filed away as the little sister of the class. This included the occasional support in between all the teasing.

I was presented with the opportunity to make my first big impression on the night that the bunker gear was assigned.

My first challenge came in attempting to find anything small enough to fit my womanly 5’4” frame. Once I deduced that the smallest pants on the rack could still fit two of me: I just had to suck it up. I swam in my coat and my feet felt as if I had slipped on clown shoes instead of fire boots.

Then came the time to put it all together and be checked off. Slipping on my pants, I attempted to find suspenders short enough to work. After one of the lieutenants attempted four different suspenders in an attempt to find the smallest ones, he gave up and told me that I would just need to grow a few inches and sent me off with suspenders that slipped off my shoulders.

Next came the boots. Now I knew the boots were supposed to go inside the pants, however, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to get them underneath my pant legs.

Now, I want to take a moment to once again emphasize that I was the only one in the group who was not fire fighter minded.

After failing to slip the boots under the pants, I decided to take the pants off, put the boots on, and try going about it that way. It wasn’t until my boot was stuck halfway down the pant leg and I fell onto my behind that I realized that was not the way to go about it.

So, there I was on the floor struggling to pull my boot out of my pants. I couldn’t have been more embarrassed when one of my class mates had to help pull me free. He then proceeded to show me that you are supposed to slip the boots into the pants before you put either one on and then you slip into the boot through the pant leg and promptly pull the pants the rest of the way up.

Once I had overcome that mountain, I slipped on my coat and moved on to get my helmet; which of course fell down into my eyes. I continued to push it up and assumed I was just stuck with it, until once again one of my fellow classmates showed me that there was a screw in the back which tightened the helmet.

Having been utterly humiliated, I was glad to be done for the night. I was the only one who hadn’t played with fire equipment before and I was the only girl. In the back of my mind I was really hoping that they didn’t connect the two.

The rest of the new member academy went fairly well and I gained my fire skill of tender operations (basically the person that brings the water to the fire fighters). Of course there was the fact that I couldn’t lift let alone throw the hose larger than the one and one half inches. Or the fact that I was too short to simply climb into the fire trucks like the boys and needed to swing myself like a monkey into the cab. Or that I was the only one who needed to stand up on a tire to do the engine checks. Or…well you get the point.

All in all, I survived the new member academy and made it to probie status. For those of you who do not know what this is let me explain. A probie is basically the lowest of the low for six months at a minimum. A probie is the house maid, truck cleaner, food cooker, brunt of all jokes, is known as probie or the ever affectionate “red shirt”, and of course let us not forget the pranking: such as, banging on bedroom doors, shaking chairs, being asked to complete tasks that don’t exist, and well, the list goes on.

I am now three months into my probationary period. I have had the joys of falling down in the back of an ambulance, having my very first patient attempt to comfort me as I was a nervous mess, be snapped at by a doctor because I wasn’t giving my report fast enough, and driving training.

Oh the driving training.  Now for a girl that only ever really drove a compact car, an ambulance is more than just a little big. I was able to pass the driving course with only a slightly horrific carnage of cones. The real driver training began with my crew. This was where I learned the importance of smooth stopping and turns. My paramedic in an attempt to drill it into my head that every little movement you feel up front is amplified in the back, took the lid off of my soda and set it up on the dash.

For everyone who has not done this before I’ll just let you know that it is extraordinarily stressful. Add in the fact that you are surrounded by really expensive electrical equipment and I’m hoping you can feel my pain. The entire time I was just thinking over and over “please don’t spill, for the love of all things cute and fluffy just don’t spill.” I did fairly good and was attempting to appease my paramedic by “not taking my foot off the gas until told”, when tragedy struck- the cup began to slide across the dash. My only saving grace was that it was sliding toward the paramedic and he caught it not wanting to be drenched. He lovingly told me that had it been falling towards me he would have let it spill.

After the cup torture, came the timed test. Getting across town by a designated time limit and knowing that for every minute you are late you will have to do it again. It is funny how impending torture can make you drive faster. By the end of the day, the paramedic was impressed with my progress and said next time I will be driving lights and sirens…oh fun. Don’t get me wrong, I want to run code three eventually, but I am terrified at the thought of having to speed in a giant vehicle that definitely doesn’t stop on a dime. Oh well, guess I will cross that bridge as it comes.

So, here I am with three months left of probation and wondering what the next shift will have in store.”

It still brings a smile to my face thinking of the firehouse and my old crew no matter how much I was teased and prodded. Yet it no longer causes my heart to ache with longing and wallow in self pity. Yes, I lost this dream: it was stripped from me by a split second accident and a doctor that didn’t truly listen, but I will find a new dream-there will always be a new dream. In fact, the fabrics of passion are weaving a new path for my heart to follow.

No matter what happens, or how life tears away the only thing you can see, don’t be afraid; for there will always be a dream to follow and a call to light the passion in your soul. Dare to dream and dream again as many times as necessary. 

Intergrating Media

Dream to Dreams can now be found on social media networks!

If interested, you can connect with the blog through these various networks:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dreamtodreams

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DreamtoDreams

Tumblr: http://tikvah-dreamtodreams.tumblr.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/107351131746319098783/107351131746319098783/posts/p/pub

 

Feel free to add any of these sources that would make your life easier. I shall do my best to keep them all up to date and do the blog justice.

 

To all the people seeking truth and creating life- keep chasing the light!

A Call for Righteousness

How do you keep from overflowing with passion at what is true? How do you keep it bottled inside without screaming and shouting on roof tops and road ways? Better yet, how do you keep it hidden inside yourself that not even you can tell that it is even there?

We have become blind to our own passions, floating through life doing whit is expected and what is agreeable to others.

On one hand, that could be the right way to go about things, for it is written: “as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” However, does peace mean traveling through life numb? And that is where the answer is “peace”. What does peace entail? Thus unravels the other part of the answer, “as far as it depends on you”. Yashua is to be our example, he is the living word; therefore, he was living in peace with everyone as far as it depended on him.

We have no control over how people will react to us living righteously. This is clearly seen with Yashua; he lived his life by and taught love and he was hated. It even warns us that we will be hated. Yet we live in fear of the hate no matter how we deny it.

So, instead of standing up, in fear of being the nail that is smashed down, we shrink into the crowd doing what is right in the eyes of the herd instead of those of Yahweh. Never truly breaking Yahweh’s will, but never standing up.

Perhaps, on a rare occasion, we muster up the courage to do what is righteous, but the reward doesn’t pan out or the consequences are too steep and we shrink back into our camouflage of normality.

Even knowing this truth isn’t enough to make us act. No amount of knowing can change our heart. Is has to take hold of your soul and change your entire being. It is not something you can plan or do on your own. In fact, it might not happen; in likelihood you do not want it to truly happen.

But those whose hearts are longing and pure- He hears your cries. Be obedient. Be persistent. Don’t let go. 

Just a Passing Storm

I am engaged to the wonderful man that swept me off my feet and into a whirlwind of love. It is a strange sensation looking into the eyes of the man you want to spend the rest of your life with and knowing that he wants to do the same. We actually practice meditating together while gazing into the other’s eyes. Sometimes I feel as though I am falling in so deep that I am inside of him.

Yet…I am still struggling to be intimate. Well, intimate in the sense of physicality. When we first started dating we agreed that we wouldn’t lose ourselves to urges of passion until we were united in the covenant well known as marriage. For some reason, the fact that we are now engaged is weighing down on my feelings of inability to be physical. I am worried that I will not be able to be intimate…or maybe I am afraid of being able to.

It really doesn’t make sense to me. I just…blah. Perhaps that is not the real problem at all: just a convenient excuse.

The much more reasonable answer is the overwhelming feeling of uselessness I have been experiencing. Ever since my injury and loss of my career as an EMT Firefighter I have felt this weight on me. Not so long ago I received an e-mail reminding me to re-certify my EMT license. I can’t however. You have to be currently working or having been working within the past 6 months with special circumstances.

I don’t know why that frustrates me so badly. I knew that my career as an EMT and especially a Firefighter was over. I just am having trouble coping with that. Add on that my injury has been acting up causing me intense pain and brutally reminding me that my choices at what I can do for the rest of my life are severely limited.

I feel useless. I can’t do anything. I am trying to be happily engaged and simply plan my wedding. How can I though when the mounting cost of a wedding is burring me and I can’t do anything to help out. And I repeat, I feel useless.

But I know I can’t give up. I know there is a purpose: a reason. I have to rely upon my Ish and YHVH to pull me through. I know this is just a passing storm- I will come through stronger and better for withstanding it.

Dreams Lost

It is a strange sensation to realize you don’t really recognize yourself anymore. To wake up, look in a mirror, and wonder what happened to the person that you thought you were. I’m not sure whether it is a good or a bad thing that I have changed: perhaps time will tell.

The fires of passion are fickle little beasts that can consume you whole and then leave you dry. One day you are willing to stand in front of a speeding semi if it would help your cause and slowly, without noticing the change, you simply don’t care anymore. I don’t want to give the impression that hope is dying; the exact same thing happens in reverse. Simple little things that I never ever cared about before, I am now giving lectures on to anyone willing to listen.

So, is this shifting of dreams just the normal path of life, or am I missing something crucial? Has something happened without me noticing that now has me spinning out of control? Is there a force in action that I need to be battling to stop these changes, or can I simply ride it out and see where I end up? Perhaps I am just questioning myself because I question everything in life.

My birthday just passed and I am even further into needing to be an adult. Yet, try as I might, everything I thought I had figured out has crumbled away. Everything I thought I wanted to do with my life is gone- slowly stripped away by broken dreams and harsh reality.

On the other hand, I have met the love of my life. He completes me entirely. My love and trust in him has brought me further away from home than I have ever been; and although positive, has completely changed my life. Life in the city is simply different than living in the mountains: not saying better or worse, simply different. However, I wouldn’t trade living in the familiar for the love that I have now. A couple more weeks will mark one year with the man who proved that I do have a soul mate. And as happy as I am being with him I can’t help but feel like something is missing.

A purpose. That is what is missing from my life. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Well, I know that I want to be a wife and a mom and have an amazing home, but until then is missing. I feel like I should be doing something meaningful and helping people. Perhaps that is the influence of growing up being told that you are special, but deep down inside of me I feel that it is true. That I can make a difference. That I can do something. That something somewhere is calling out to me and waiting for me to respond. I keep waiting for the synapses in my brain to connect the dots and provide me an answer, but for now I come up blank.

I know this longing is magnified by my rocky relationship with YHVH. I don’t even feel right calling Him Papa right now with how I have been treating our relationship. I know that needs to be fixed before anything else will make sense. I know that imbalance gravitates outwards and affects everything else. I just don’t know how to fix something when I can’t identify where it is broken. Or maybe that better description would be that it is broken in so many places I don’t know where to start building from again.

Hopefully the next time I write I will have found one of those cracks and filled it in causing the ripple to reverse and bring a little clarity.

Finding Love Part 1

Love, we all look for it and seek to define it. I want to know how my Papa defines it. What is love according to YHVH.

According to Interlinear Scripture Analyzer, the word love appears three hundred and eleven times in two hundred and eighty one verses. It first appears in Genesis 27:4 when Issac is talking about meat. Now if Issac was the first person to have a documented account of using the word love, that would imply that neither Adam and Abraham used the word. While that is much easier to believe with Adam, since he so easily turned on his Isha; I needed to go back to be sure.

The closest thing to love Adam showed Chavah was in Genesis 2:23 when he says “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Isha because she was taken out of Ish. For this reason man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they will become one flesh (echad).”

Now, for some reason ready this piece of history and then how he so easily turns saying “the woman whom you gave to be with me.” He never appeared to truly treasure her. Here YHVH fashioned an Isha, the perfect help mate, something so precious and Adam didn’t cherish her. It kind of upsets me, but at the same time it makes me step back and wonder what YHVH has done for me that I haven’t cherished or taken as precious like I should.

Reading through Abraham and Sarah’s story again I was struck by a hard thought. When they enter Egypt Abram asks Sari to say that she is he sister, because he knows that they will see that she is beautiful and want to take her for themselves. She trusts in Abram so much that she agrees to say that she is his sister knowing that it would place her in a potential “danger”. Even when she is taken to the Pharaoh’s courts, she continues to trust in Abram’s judgment.

I honestly don’t think that at the point I am at in my life I would be able to obey my Ish so completely without question and have such unwavering trust in him. I know this, because there is a piece of me that still struggles to trust in Yashua and He has never changed. So, if I have difficulty trusting someone that is the embodiment of trustworthy, how can I trust someone who I know will be tested? So, if I can admit to myself that I don’t yet contain the capability to follow my Ish when he asks me to trust him, why in the world would I expect Papa to bring him into my life.

I can see piece by piece how much more I must focus and work on myself if I want to be anything more than a burden to the one that I was made for. I know that I have the ability to trust inside of me, that I will heal that I am a new creation and that all things are possible through Him who strengthens me. But, just because I know it intellectually does not force the change to happen instantly. Through prayer and perseverance though, I shall become the beacon of light I am made to be.

For those that seek shall find and to those who knock it is opened and those who ask receive. So, I will ask, knock and seek until I am the person I know that I can be. Until I can stand unwavering next to my Ish, because I can trust in him, because I trust fully in Yashua and know that He will be guiding both of us.

 

I find it just a little funny that as I search for the answers to what love is I am uncovering who I am and realizing who I want to be. Papa, hear me now and hear my heart’s cry. I want to be perfected. I need to undergo the transformation that will bring me to the higher calling I know you have set aside for me. I am yours Papa. Where I ran before and sought my own way, I am ready to listen and follow you unwavering.

 

Crashing and Burning and Coming Back with Flames

“Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28

Recently, I have been sick; nothing serious, but a constant dragging that adds to the endless feeling of being tired. I finally heard my Papa calling to me: “Do I have to make you sick for you to rest.” So, I spent an entire day in bed “resting” and thinking that would make everything better. However, I was missing the big point; I was missing the type of rest I was supposed to be receiving. I just continued to grow more tired and the more tired I became the easier it became for the enemy to prey upon me.

I had allowed myself to grow completely blind to the stronghold the enemy was building on me. I was growing angry- really angry. I was angry at men, all men. I got so low I was ready to give up on love. Give up on ever finding anyone that would be everything I was looking for. I was so down I threw myself a nice big hate filled pity party. I kept thinking back to all the men who had done me wrong and all the pressure and chaos that was in the world.

I wanted to explode with all of the emotions raging inside of me. And then Matthew 11:28 rang through my ears and Papa calling out to me and asking me to rest. It wasn’t the physical rest that I needed (though I had been lacking that too), I needed to run to the one man that had proven himself trustworthy time after time; the only man that had never hurt me and only ever loved with a love so powerful it is hard to comprehend.

I had already been feeling the push to truly reveal what love was according to YHVH. This was just more of a reason to find the answers. I had been using the idea of “love” to beat myself up and ride myself to basically a breaking point. The spiritually conscious part of my brain knew that this wasn’t real love in the slightest.

After deciding to do this study, redefine myself to be focused solely on YHVH and Yashua, to light myself on fire for YHVH more than ever before, something hit me. That while I had been angry and moping about my Ish not being here and wondering where he is and what he is doing. That entire time how much was I dulling him? How much harder was I making it for him to stand? How long did he struggle while I was letting my flesh control me? The very thought sickened me. I made a decision then and there that I would do everything in my power to be the very best Son I could be so that I would not burden my Ish, but instead be the suitable helper to lift him up and empower him like I am supposed to.

So my quest for both of these starts with this study. Starts with finding out everything I can about YHVH’s love and how I can embody that love to share with those I encounter. So here goes. Here is to setting my soul on fire, for finding my voice once again, to becoming wholly YHVH’s with a heart for Yashua.

Genesis Reflection One

I started re-reading my bible today from the very beginning. At first I was just reading through knowing that out of all the books Genesis is the one I know best. But then I slowed down and started over and really focused on the words and everything I had studied on it before and it was beautiful.

The love story portrayed in those first few verses is simply priceless. YHVH takes this ugly, void, chaotic mass and sees something precious in it. So, He extends Himself over it and pushes His light into it. Before YHVH puts His Spirit on the mass it is complete darkness, but afterwards the darkness can be separated from the light. So, there is still darkness, but now there is light to see, feel, cherish, and take hold of.

YHVH doesn’t stop there, He also molds and shapes the mass constantly separating and binding up. After each thing He does He blesses the mass.

Then the truly marvelous part, He turns an ugly chaotic void into an Isha by giving her the power to create life. By giving her the ability to bear seed, He is accomplishing something remarkably beautiful.

Yashua will mirror this same scenario. He comes into a dark, desperate, dying, unrighteous world; yet, he still accepts it as his bride. He teaches and grooms showing how to grab hold of the light and depart from darkness. He reforms as he heals the sick, dying, and dead. Finally, he gives his life so that his bride can have life again by taking hold of his life.

To me the comparison really stands out, but I am struggling to put the concept into words. It’s just something that when it hits you it is wow. It made me step back and realize that I once was ugly, void of life, emotion, happiness, love, and chaotic. However, YHVH saw through as dark as my life was and saw something in me that no one else not even I could see. He wrapped Himself around me and introduced light into my life. Then piece by piece he remolded me by loosening all that was unrighteous and unholy and binding love, faith, and obedience. He placed a light in me that I can share through love to bring life into the world- a light so precious and worth more than any jewel. With that He is constantly blessing me and building me up even when I start to look ugly again, He brushed me up, pushes in deeper, and brings my light back full force.

I am an Isha, because my Papa, YHVH, has made me one. I am a bearer of life. I must keep that in the forefront of my mind, because if my light becomes dim it not only harms me, but everyone who then can’t see my light which is my Papa’s love in me.