Our lives are to mirror God’s, in our thought, words, and actions.
Daniel 6:24
The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.
1 Corinthians 16:13
Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong.
Words of Grace For Today
The king gives a command, which decimates Daniel’s enemies who were bent on killing him. They and all their families face the death they had set Daniel to suffer.
I saw this sign in a furniture store, among the kitsch hanging about:
Karma, I have a list of people you seem to have missed.
No matter our enemies, our faith given to us inspires us to love even our enemies. Revenge or Karma’s actions, or what goes around comes around are not what we wish for those who would destroy us, even when they do their best from or through seats of the highest powers, the richest businesses, the most influential families, and not even from or through the force of armed police. We forgive, except when these actions go unrestrained, unnamed, unnoticed (except by their innocent victims). Then, ordained as a select few of us are, we must name those sins as bound, and leave them to God’s judgment. We trust that the Light of Christ will shine on their evil deeds. We treat them as those outside God’s people, with empathy and care, even when they deserve none of it.
This is no easy task.
It is also no easy task to forgive those who blatantly breach the health orders. Their foolishness puts themselves and so many of us, at terrible risk of coming down with Covid 19, which will lead to the death of those most vulnerable. The fools will likely live on to continue to threaten others again.
Still we pray: God helps us Keep alert, stand firm in our faith, be courageous, and be strong.
God’s Eternal Word has Broken into This That We Know.
Genesis 18:19
For I have chosen him [Abraham], that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what the Lord has promised him.
Romans 6:22
Now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.
Words of Grace For Today
Wikipedia provides that ‘Sanctification is the act or process of acquiring sanctity, of being made or becoming holy.’
We believe firmly that only God can make us holy. We cannot act to become, or enter a process of becoming holy. Sanctification is a gift given at Baptism. Thereafter one chooses in each minute/choice to act out of being holy, or not; and truth is we all act out of both all the time, simultaneously.
As generations rise and pass, we may well charge the successive generations to ‘keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.’ This is Abraham acting then, but it is ever since God acting in the lives of the successive generations, one generation, one person at a time, to inspire them to act out righteousness and justice. God and any human who lives, eyes even a bit open, knows there are plenty of people with lots of power, influence and money who, in each generation (also ours), have no inkling for righteousness and true justice. It is all self interest, the rest of humanity be damned. Which really is the condemnation of themselves in eternity.
Given the gift of sanctification we areholy! We have the ability to be holy in every moment. In these choices, compromised as they may be by our still being sinners, we not only have an end in eternal life, we have the blessings of eternal life already today, every day!
As Covid 19 health concerns and orders foist so many new limits on our lives, new challenges, and new frustrations. Humour provides a view to this. My 88 year old Mother, living alone 10 miles from town provided these:
Who would have thought that when the time changed we would go from standard time to twilight zone time, where: I need to practice social distancing from the refrigerator. I am so excited! I am so excited. It’s time to take out the garbage. What should I wear? This month’s biggest decision was where to go for Easter! the living room or the bed room.
Simple Daylight Savings Time does not look that terrible anymore.
God’s holy people know God’s time is eternal and already it breaks in every day into our mundane lives, making each minute remarkable!
For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.
Mark 16:2-4
And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.
Words of Grace For Today
Christ is Risen! [Do you know the response?]
The dark hours of Jesus’ crucifixion and our continual sacrifice of others is passed. The void of yesterday is passed. The tomb is discovered empty by Mary and/or Peter.
God is not dead. God does not end Jesus’ story with his death, nor ours. Our stories continue in the stories of all the saints.
The Holy Spirit equips us to be ‘little Christs’ to one another, and sinners though we remain we can find our way to do the work of Christ as the saints God transforms us to be.
Jesus rescues us.
Jesus rescues us from our sins.
Jesus rescues us from our sins and the dark fog that lays over our future days.
Jesus rescues us.
We live in the Kingdom of God.
Every day we can learn and teach others to see the Light of Christ.
Every day we can give thanks. Death no longer has dominion over us, nor the Devil and all his works in and around us!
Every day we can respond, sharing all God has given us with those who need it so much.
Every day.
Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!
Christ is Risen! He is risen in deed!
Christ is Risen! He is risen in our deeds for others!
Do you want the Word, Jesus Christ, to reach more and more people?
Do you want to grow the body of Christ, to share the Good News with new people, to provide ministry to more people than you have before?
Most pastors and leaders of congregations would say, Yes?
But are you willing to get the things done to make that happen?
Most pastors and leaders would say yes, but …. And then not do what is necessary.
So what if Covid 19 has shut down gatherings, including worship services. Our hearts and brains still live on, right?
Why is Covid 19 not an opportunity to reach more people?
It is easier to get someone to ‘participate in’, to ‘visit’, or to ‘try out’ a church on line than in person. So why are the churches not capitalizing on that?
Yes, some are putting together online worship opportunities, so severely limited by the brick and mortar model of worship, that it’s painful to watch the results, but then worship in person has often been that, too. No wonder memberships decline. Or worse is for it all to become an entertainment hour where the real Word of God is hardly a bother.
Assets
Intentional Interim Ministry teaches (as many elsewhere, too) that the way to grow a church is to build on the church’s assets, on your own assets.
Among Trinity’s assets are it has a cathedral style building with a pipe organ, and an organist in Cherie Larson who knows how to make it ‘sing’, and other musicians who contribute at a very professional level to enliven worship with profoundly meaningful music.
Trinity also tapped someone who is a professional quality photographer and a video editor to create an entrance/prelude collage and exit/postlude collage of photos, set to music which is an excellent experience to take in on Youtube (better than actually entering the brick and mortar building!)
So far, so good!
Hymns
Then for hymns for the worship service, the music (from the hymnal?) with words and musical notes are presented on the screen while the music is professionally produced for the audio track, also a joy to experience. It is as good as if one is there in person (almost – since other congregants voices are missing – but one hardly notices that lack since it is still terrific to experience as it is done.) No two hymns are presented in the same way. Different instruments and voice-collections are used for each hymn. Nothing is merely good enough and then boringly the same. Always a variety brings out the best in the music of the hymn presented, reflecting the content of the hymn in the best possible way.
So far, getting better.
The rest of Trinity’s worship can be skipped over so as not to detract from the worship experience. But read on to how easy it would be to make all profoundly wondrous.
God’s House?
The Body of Christ, the Church is not made of Brick and Mortar or Wood
So what’s missing?
Missing are liturgy, scripture readings, sermon and prayers that reflect the Good News they are intended to be, instead of half efforts to fulfill an obligation whatever that is.
Readings and Words spoken need to sing!
Readings of the biblical texts for the day, can be read with heart, clarity and meaning that convey the content of the lessons. Why present worship without scripture, and scripture presented like it truly is God’s Word to us, in all its glory.
Liturgy can easily be presented, like the hymns, so that one can participate. Again reflecting God’s Word to us in all its glory.
A sermon ought memorably reflects the lessons of the day, the news of the day, and God’s life-giving Word meeting us in our sinful/God-made saintly lives. It is not that difficult to present a sermon in a manner that makes it as profound an experience as the entrance/prelude or the hymns. Of course a sermon ought to reflect the theology of the cross, of grace, and of hope that inspired us to become pastors in the first place.
Other worship material can also easily be presented so that people can participate (like the hymns are presented to be participated in.)
How come these other pieces of the worship are not as good as the music? It’s not because they cannot be. I’ve experienced them at Trinity to be as good, and not. And at a great number of other churches, both as tremendously good and woefully poor. What is it anyway that we fail to be inspired (inwardly animated to engage in the profound in-breaking of the divine in our life at that moment) leading worship, as Pastors and as lay people?
So what could be done?
This is not just for Trinity, but for every congregation out there that dares to ask, how can we reach and minister to and provide care for even more people, especially during this crisis?
What are your assets?
Can someone do music well for the congregation?
Can someone do photography well for the congregation?
Can someone do video editing well for the congregation?
Can you do your own great version of Trinity’s Prelude/Postlude?
Note: the photography for all the photos throughout the service cannot be just pictures; Trinity’s are professional photos taken with great care to present what is there with the best light, composition, and tone! That is not simple or easy to reduplicate. But if you want to do this well, good photography is a minimum!
Note: the music is not just any music played sort of well. It is the right music for the season, for the experience of entering worship. That is not simple or easy to reduplicate. But if you want to do this well, good music is a minimum!
What to do to make this worship profound through the whole service?
What could make the ‘talking head’ sections of worship not just better but profoundly inspiring to experience?
How about the best lighting, composition, and tone set up for the recording of the Pastor/Readers?
How about putting the Pastor – even a still photo (especially if you cannot figure out good photography while recording video of the readings)- standing at the altar, or at the lectern or in the pulpit as is appropriate?
How about not presenting the Pastor sitting?
How about not presenting the ‘talking head’ throughout the section being presented?
How about starting with the live/still Pastor/Reader photos/videos, and then on top of the continuing audio using photos or video that reflect the meaning of the audio beneath?
Do not present amateur photos or video or audio. Make it better than just good. Make it profoundly good!
Every human is a precious person, created in God’s image.
There is no human face that cannot be photographed to be engaging!
So do not present photos or videos that present any presenter (Pastor or lay) as washed out, greyed out, or old and tired.
Plain words are better than bad photos of the reader!
Same goes for voices! Remember, these voices carry the Word of God. Do not present almost dead, hard to hear, or confused voices. They ought to be professionally-played-on-a-pipe-organ music to one’s ears, heart, and soul! (Pastors: if you do not know how to do this then now is finally the opportunity to learn. Start with understanding the words and the Word they proclaim! The words ought to stir your spirit when you say them! Edit and practice saying them until they do!)
What is required to do this (much, so far)?
Equipment (computer and software) to record music.
Equipment (computer and software) to record ‘talking heads’.
A good [cell] camera, computer and software to produce the photos.
Equipment (computer and software) to edit video
A photographer.
A videographer. (these may be the same person, even one of the readers, pastors, or musicians.)
A website with Youtube posting or link capabilities.
A Youtube account.
Musicians, Pastor, Readers,
The Holy Spirit – is already ready to inspire everyone!
The Online Worship Results
So the worship experience on the church’s website is as terrific as it can be, worth participating in, something anyone would be proud to provide the link to, to anyone.
It’s all good enough to go viral and (not be an embarrassment to anyone, rather it would) make everyone proud to be part of the effort!
Now What? ‘Shoe Leather’ is Required
Now What!?
Now it’s the same as a mission church: share the good news.
Distribute hard copy invitations to be distributed (carefully protected as VIRUS CLEAN – state on the papers what precautions are taken to ensure the papers are CLEAN!)
Distribute them to members at home (lots of driving, but get it done, at least once!) Think about distributing already consecrated elements at the same time, in quantity to last a few months for all bound to the limits of home.
Give members multiple copies of the invite and encourage them to make more copies or ask for more if they need them.
Ask them to share the invitations with everyone they know, and anyone who is lonely! That’s a whole lot of people now!
In the neighbourhood around the church, hit the pavement with many persons working alone, putting the invitations in mailboxes -careful to be virus clean!
Why now?!
Because we can!
Because it’s God’s Word!
Because people are more in need of some contact, and open to responding to invitations online and have time to respond!
Because people are hurting, and hurting people are the people the church (historically, if not your church) cares about, and cares for!
Because it is why we live and breathe!
Because the hard work is rent for the air we breathe!
Do you want your congregation to grow, or it’s ministry to reach more people!?
Answer with your actions.
Chop Chop
Chop Chop, there’s work to be done!
Comments are welcome back to
shm AT prwebs DOT
Rev. Tim Lofstrom
Who am I? I know whose I am and who I am, but maybe you do not. I am:
Photographer, writer, blogger, and erstwhile Euphonium player and student of music.
B.A. summa cum laude from Concordia with CREDO honors, M.Div. from Yale, one year scholarship at Justus Liebig Universität, and 16 years parish experience spread over 4 decades, spouse to a parish pastor for over 3 decades.
Also commercial pilot; stay at home father; instructor at community colleges for computers; bookkeeping, photography; MCSE (NT4), ran a computer business for 8 years; and built a house with my own hands after retiring in my 40’s as a pastor in order to pull my pension as seed money for a home for my family.
Now: homeless, my reputation ruined thorough gaslighting even as I did laudably also for children, still creating photos, writing, and celebrating the Eucharist to remember who I am in the face of who people lie to say I am other.
Dark Days, Foggy Days and Minds: These are not the End!
Psalms 112:1
Praise the Lord! Happy are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commandments.
1 Peter 2:24-25
He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
Words of Grace For Today
Happiness is elusive. It can be superficially faked or a product of will-ful ignorance. Set out to gain true happiness and it cannot be found, nor held onto. Even in the worst of times, true happiness can overwhelm us. Most often it sits on one side or the other of the border between reality and wish. It has taken me most of my many decades of life to realize that we can choose to embrace happiness as it sits on or so close to that border. We can at least be ready to invite it to accompany us through our days.
Jesus commands us to love one another. Doing so can only give us great delight and happiness, for we then fulfill the very purpose for which God created us.
Our sins darken our days, casting long shadows endlessly across our futures. Our sins cover our single steps forward in a soup of dense fog, so that we lose our way, and ourselves. We are lost like stupid sheep.
God does not abandon us even on our darkest days. On the torture instrument of a cross, Jesus hung, crucified in agony and died; so that the price for our sins would be paid, and we could see again, so the fog of our sins would be lifted, so that we could choose also this day to do what God created us to do!
It is a dark day, Good Friday is. Out of sheer darkness God makes the light of Christ bright to all of us; the darker our sins, the more obvious Jesus’ light, love and forgiveness that gives us life free of sin. In this darkness, see the shadow of the cross. Orient your life by precisely that with all the hope of happiness afforded you these days. Share then the slightest glimmer of happiness, the light of Christ that gives us life free of sin. People thirst for exactly this, especially now.
One small step at a time brings us forward into the unsee-able future.
Zechariah 8:21
The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Come, let us go to entreat the favour of the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.’
Mark 14:26
When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Words of Grace For Today
Maundy, from the Latin word mandatum (command),’ refers to Jesus’ command to ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’
Life moves forward in time, one step at a time, one event progressing into the next. Sometimes the most simple decision or movement by us precipitates things momentous.
Today we remember Jesus act of washing the disciples feet, the act of a servant, done by the master out of profound and unconditional love. Jesus also washed Judas’ feet with all the others’.
How can we, physically isolated for everyone’s health safety, gather together to seek the Lord? We no longer need to seek the Lord’s favour. In our baptisms we have received the promise and the ongoing reality of God’s favour giving us freedom through forgiveness as a gift (grace). We also received gifts of the Holy Spirit that equip us to be the Love of Jesus for one another. Therefore, our seeking is not God’s favour for ourselves. Rather we seek that the favour, blessing, and promises of God may become a daily reality in the lives of our neighbours, the foreigners and strangers in our midst, and all of God’s creatures, indeed all of creation.
How can we not be more creative every day in the manner we exercise Jesus’ love given to us to share with others?
Some of the best news broadcast these days are exactly the creative efforts of people to share the goodness of life with others outside the isolation bubbles we must maintain.
Share the good news. Share Jesus’ love. Make it real. Sing.
One small step at a time, we move forward. The next event may see us hiding in fear and/or showing ourselves more clearly, suffering and/or singing still, mourning and/or filled with Christ’ own joy. Today we ‘wash each others’ feet’, figuratively and perhaps literally, not knowing what will come next, yet always trusting that God’s promises are sure.
See all that is fallen, even rotting with only a shell of bark. Remember, this too shall pass.
Psalms 51:14
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
John 16:20
Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.
Words of Grace For Today
The horrors of bloodshed are not part of the pandemic. That would make things even worse., as if worse is needed. We still pray for deliverance from this microscopic enemy, or those two legged animals who mindlessly, ignorantly spread it about so easily. It would be so nice to find those culprits and isolate them to put this to an end. But there is no ‘we’ or ‘them’. It is us. The latest is that asymptomatic people, like you and me (if you have no symptoms … yet), can be contagious. Turns out all our very necessary efforts to stop the spread are pretty minimal defences. Like the disease of sin, we easily cannot recognize who is already ill, though they display no signs of illness. So we need pray that we be delivered.
There is in this a great amount of mourning and weeping. First, we weep for what our defence efforts have cost us all, which is no small loss. Second, when loved ones and acquaintances succumb to this enemy, our grief seems to have no bounds.
God’s promises, always and here again, that our weeping and mourning will be turned into joy. We hold on to that promise, and it carries us forward through these difficult days.
See the big picture. See it in detail. See through the fog.
Zephaniah 3:15
The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.
Mark 4:40
He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’
Words of Grace For Today
Jesus paid heavily that we might be forgiven, and know we are forgiven, so that we can forgive others. Jesus frees us from our sins. We can turn our enemies away, by forgiving them so that they become God’s creatures, fellow sojourners on this planet earth. Given God’s truth for all occasions we need fear no disaster.
That does not mean disasters will not come our way.
Only that we need not fear them.
Fear cripples us. Anxiety cripples us. We revert to fight, flight, or freeze instinctual responses that cut off our reasoning. Great when we face a charging hyena or lion. But facing most everyday challenges and many extraordinary ones, like Covid-19, our instinctual, fear and anxiety based responses make their own disasters quicker than we realize.
Covid-19 responses need to be carefully planned, habitually and in great detail carried out, and reviewed and revised in light of the latest real, truthful information about the virus’ transmission and ways of surviving the illness when we or others in our care come down with symptoms.
Literally, fear and panic will definitely kill us, if not physically then in every other manner.
Why are we still afraid? This is not any kind of fear Jesus asks about, this is the fear that will kill us. Have we still no faith that Jesus will save us, even if we die? When we no longer fear death or illness or anything, then we can act with considered, wise actions, which not only protect us from Covid-19 but give us and those around us life, even as we self-isolate and keep physical distance from others.
One
of God’s gift to us humans is our ability to understand stories, to
hear them and experience what is in them, and to write stories to
convey more than just the words describe, or as in movies, more than
what the images portray by themselves.
Imagination More Than We Could Know
Imagination More Than We Could Know
Stories have the key to communicate the
most hidden, the most complex, the most poignant, the most critical,
and the most beautiful aspects of life itself; and in that
communication to the reader, listener, or viewer to teach something
new, to connect at an un-imagined level, and to reveal something even
beyond what the author, reader and creator conceived possible.
Our Words and Images Reach The Pinnacle and Depth of Beauty
Our Words and Images Reach The
Pinnacle and Depth of Beauty
This Lent we embark on 40 days of
fasting, reflection, prayer and meditation which themselves reflect a
long tradition of the preparation to hear the story of Passion week
and Easter Sunday, and which in themselves each year are a new story
for each one of us.
What is your story, the one you are always part of?
What is your story, the one you are
always part of?
What new will you learn, imagine,
encounter on your 40 day journey this Lent?
Can you see something new?
Can you see something new?
Lent has it’s own stories, worthy of
hearing again and again: Shrove Tuesday: the yeast and oil used in
one last meal so the house has none in it during Lent. The ashes of
our origins and ends as organisms on this earth. Marked in the sign
of the cross, branding us as belonging to Christ. No meat. Fasting
severe or limited. Giving up something. Engaging in something.
Praying daily or even hourly, especially for one’s enemies.
Can we see through the fog?
Can we see through the fog?
All this to prepare
our hearts, mind and souls to hear, imagine, and celebrate Jesus’
sacrifice and victory over death and all our sin.
Christ’s story is filled with Light!
Christ’s story is
filled with Light!
All this to prepare
our hearts, mind and souls to hear, imagine, and celebrate Jesus’
story
lived out in our lives.
For the last seven years I have been gaslit by so many people. First at home and then it spread through the church as the lay pastor started in, by people in the community recruited by the RCMP, the RCMP themselves, by lawyers, the prosecutors and even my own lawyers, and most recently by the judges and justices who created their own lies in order to convict me, and to deny my applications.
This
may be difficult for many to believe.
It
used to be unimaginable to me.
But
no longer.
Now
it is the truth that impacts my daily life, as my ‘ex’, the lawyers,
and the courts have completely ruined me financially driving me into
debt so far I cannot see the light or the tunnel. I have left to my
name a huge debt, a bicycle, a tent, a sleeping bag and my clothes. I
live alone in the woods. I survive on money borrowed from family and
friends, using borrowed highly modified equipment to survive the
elements on next to no money.
It
appears that the lies told about me and those who have told them, and
the judges who have ruled using them, have completely determined my
life.
This
is not so. They have determined some of the external circumstances of
my life, and they seem to persist at determining more. But they
cannot determine who I am and what I have done (or not done).
The truth reflects the beauty God created in the world, which lies do not change.
I am still the same kind, gracious, man of faith that I have always been, with a good set of skills and knowledge, and abilities, and above all the assurance that, because God loves me, I am able to love, forgive (or not as it is), breathe, and extend Grace as it is extended to me.
Those who have gaslit me, those who have repeatedly and intentionally lied about me, in order to try to create a reality about me that simply is not so; these people have not created a reality about me. They have created a huge set of lies.
Their lies do not determine who I am. They do not define me.
The fog of lies cannot conceal that lies are lies, as weeds are weeds.
Their lies determine who they are. Their lies define them.
My ex and the children I have long since forgiven. They were, at my ex’s invitation, my life, my love, and God’s gifts to me.
But all the others, those who are given authority and responsibility to investigate and rule based on the truth. those whose positions are to be respected, they are not only guilty; they make a habit of gaslighting others, and some have laughed at their maniacal fun at hurting innocent people.
As I am ordained to extend grace and forgiveness to all people whom I meet, I am also ordained to bind the sins of those who should not be forgiven. This is a rare thing. But these lies are all too common, oft repeated, and engaged in as sport, as the record of innocent men convicted by the courts belies.
The damage their lies do to the innocent men and the children is incomprehensible. They leave children in the care of people who create lies about men who healthily love their children. They leave children with sole parents who suffer psychotic breaks, who project their own faults on to others near them including the children and their spouses. They leave the children without a healthy parent, and with a most unhealthy parent, who does the unspeakable to the children, and then adds those terrible things to the list of lies about which they gaslight their spouses.
The damage is also to the spouse (and children) who lie to create a false and terrible story about their innocent men. Being believed when one lies, and encouraged even to lie more, disrupts any trust even the liar could possibly have in the just and fairness of the world. At any moment someone else could start lying about them and they would be ruined based on those lies.
The damage is to everyone, for at any moment anyone can start lying about anyone else, and the person lied about will be ruined, even though they are innocent. This is the destruction of trust, without which society disintegrates into a morass of nothing being true or trustworthy or healthy, for anyone.
This is who the people who gaslight others are: they are those who dismantle everyone’s ability to trust the rule of law, the word of people, the basic justness of our country. Many peoples, against whom prejudice and bias has run rampant, have known this for generations.
Now
I known it, personally.
No matter what you expect or believe, that leaf is there. The truth is there. No lie can change the truth.
Whether
you believe me or not is immaterial, but it is vitally important. You
could easily be next.
This is what those who gaslight others do to our country. This is who they are. This is how they try to determine others to be worse than themselves, but that is a futile effort. This is who they determine themselves to be: corrupters and perverters of all that is good.
Thus their sins are bound, and they are told, so that they are as aware as they can be made to be. They have time to amend their lives, through telling the complete truth about their lies, openly, publicly, and through making restitution as it can be made.
Then
they can be reconciled with their victims.
Until
the day of them telling the full truth or
God judging them, this is not something
they can leave behind. It is what they have to look forward to, to
that day when the Light of Christ will shine.
May it shine soon, now on this earth, during our lives. But if not,
then soon enough.
When the Light of Christ shines on what they have done, and the truth I have always provided, no witnesses or rules of evidence will be needed. God knows everything. There is no statute of limitations or excuses of lack of resources to judge fairly according to the truth. God knows the truth, the absolute truth. God will judge their sins.
I
am not determined by their gaslighting. I do struggle to survive the
effects, but I am blessed each day. I live thankful and even joyful
at times. I will survive until God brings me home to the New
Jerusalem, the city of light, into the room prepared for me by
Christ.
I
know who I am. I am blessed to have lived a very self-aware life.
Lies do not determine or define the person whom they are told about; they determine and define the person who tells the lies.
The truth always leaves tracks. The truth will be known. The Light of Christ will shine. It is and will be beautiful!
The reality of Gaslighting is that it is destructive for everyone, but most of all for those who tell the lies.
