Beginning Again: The Red Book

 So I've recently started writing again due to some encouragement from a few people in my life. I know that no one actually reads this blog, but I'm going to post a short story that I wrote anyway. I didn't edit it at all, I didn't even read through it before posting. I wrote it raw and quickly at work this morning. So if anyone finds this, I hope you enjoy. It's a bit creepy, so here goes.

The Red Book:

A gown and two sweaters. That's all that was left of her. She must have packed before she left. I had been gone too long, and she took the opportunity to act.

I had told her.

I had told her not to touch the red book, but something about it had been pulling at her, she told me. Like a fool, I thought that if I locked it up and hid it away, that wretched pull would go away. Or at least she would have been searching for the book until I returned. But to my dismay, I returned to our little home with my arms full of vegetables from the market to find that there was nothing more left of her than three pieces of clothing.

I let the food fall out of my arms when I saw the house in such disarray. Books, dishes, and my clothing had been thrown about the cottage, evidence of her search for that which called to her. The book with red pages was gone, and she with it. My beloved Aster, lost to me. What the hell was I going to do?

-----

It started on a Sunday when we were taking a stroll to town down the dusty, rocky path. I remember how the sun dappled through the leaves, casting shade on Aster’s white hat. I always hated hats, but she made them beautiful.

We had nearly reached the end of the road where it met the town of Bawning when my beloved Aster gasped. I turned to ask after her wellbeing, but she rushed ahead several steps to the side of the road where she fell to her knees. I rushed to her side, concern beating with my heart. I found her clutching in pale fingers a book that had been lying in the grass. The cover was a solid brown except for a gold symbol that had been inlaid on the front. Curious, I crouched down beside her. She flipped open the book. The page was a deep blood red, but there were no words or symbols. She flipped to another. And another, but not a single page had a jot of ink on it. Not a sentence, not an image, not a word. But she insisted that it was lovely. I asked her if I could hold it, and she gave it to me. I could feel even through my leather gloves that it was like fire, and should I hold it for very long, it would burn through to my flesh. My dear Astor begged me to keep it for her. She said that a book must never be discarded, and requested me to put it in the pocket of my trousers. I kept it there for her. It was hot against my leg as it had been in my gloved hands, but to a bearable degree. We continued our stroll and wandered through the market. I thought nothing of it then, but for all that walk, her eyes kept darting anxiously to where the book sat in my pocket.

We arrived home, and at her asking, I gave the book back, albeit warily. She immediately began to flip through the blank pages curiously. I made dinner that night, and when at last she came to the table having put the book on the shelf, she was silent for most of the meal.

In the days that followed, she grew stranger still. The book migrated from its shelf to the bedside table every night. I lay with my darling wife, and sometimes I would wake to find her curled up with the book against her chest. A week passed and her eyes grew red-rimmed and tired. She spoke less and less. But after eight days of her immersion in this book, I finally asked what she was looking for.

“I'm reading,” she replied with a scoff, “what else would I be doing with a book?” 

I peered over her shoulder. There were no words in that book - I'm certain of it. I circled around her to look at her face, and surely it did seem from the movement of her eyes that she was reading, but as I said, there was nothing to read. Try as I did to convince her of this, she waved me away, and at the last snapped that she would not be deceived by one such as I.

I retreated then, and watched her wither. Day by day, the book seemed to consume her. It took her body as well as her mind, leaving her a shell of a woman, her soul stolen by some hidden evil on those red pages.

Two months passed since that day on the road when she fell victim to that tome, and again, I urged her to speak to me of the words she saw, for I could see nothing. She said not a word, only held the book to her closely but weakly as though all her strength had been sapped. It was that night that I heard a horrible piercing shriek of agony and horror. I leapt from my bed to find my wife on her knees in the main room. She wept and held herself around the abdomen as though in a terrible pain. I fell to my knees beside her, and took her shoulders in my hands.

“What is it, My love?” I looked nowhere but her eyes for my fear for her. “What has happened?”

She brought trembling hands between us, and I could see now that they were burned. Blisters of fire had built on her hands, and the skin was red and falling apart. I held my hands to either side of them, longing to hold them, but dreading to cause her more pain.

“Come, my love.” I placed a careful hand under her elbow and helped her to stand beside me. With a hand on her back, I guided her outside to the well where the water was fresh and cool from the night wind. Drawing a pail, I instructed her to put her hands inside and take comfort at the temperature of the water. I helped her to sit in the grass, and placed myself in front of her. While she bathed her hands, I wiped the tears from her cheeks, and brushed her long flaxen hair behind her ears. I asked her many times what had happened that she should have burned her hands so, but she continuously shook her head, not speaking a word except to beg me to take the book and hide it from her.

She need not have asked me so desperately, for long had I wished to take it from her and cast it into the fire. So unyielding were her demands to be rid of it that I at once rose and did as she asked. Leaving her there under the pale moonlight with her hands burned, I found the wretched book. I dared not touch it with my bare hands, and quickly donned my gloves before handling it. It burned again, almost seeming to turn to fire in my hands yet it remained in the form of a book. I took it to the garden behind the house and there I buried it deep in the dark soil near the flowerbed. I dared not plant it in the garden itself, for fear of what devilry should accost our growing things.

I returned to my beloved Astor to find her asleep beside the well - in perhaps a deeper sleep than she had seemed to have for months. I woke her gently only to wrap her hands, then I carried her to bed and placed myself beside her. I did not sleep that night, but she did, and I was the happier for it.

A few days passed and she seemed to be better. On occasion, she would inquire as to the location of the book, but I insisted on it being kept a secret. As time went on, she began to grow increasingly frustrated with my persistence in keeping the secret of the red book's location. I knew that every time I left the house, she would search for it, but I was so confident that she would never find it that I paid it no mind. She became angrier. Her hair began to fall out and her skin seemed to shrink so that her eyes popped from her face like marbles on a paper. She was weak and wouldn't eat. She stopped sleeping or washing, but still I would not give her the book. That was what had made her this way. If it hadn't been for that ill-fortuned volume, I would still have my dear Astor, not this bent creature that shared my house.

It was on a day when I walked alone to the market that it happened. She had long since given up coming with me on walks. The animal that now lived in place of my wife had no use for sunlight or joy or fresh air.

I had come to enjoy my solitary strolls if only to get away from the darkness that the woman who had been Astor seemed to efuse.

I took my time on this particular venture. Perhaps I knew that it was near the end, and I didn't want to watch her devolve even further into that beast into which she had turned. Perhaps I was selfish and simply longed for the joy of sunlight. Perhaps I, too, could feel something from the book and it was keeping me away as my sweet Astor disappeared.

But when I emerged into that house to see the wreckage that she had wreaked upon our home, I knew that I had been gone far too long. And more than this, I knew that I should never have allowed her to convince me that bringing the empty book home with us was a good idea.

We found her three days later in a dress marred with her blood. She lay with slit wrists and burned hands on the edge of the river, her skin having already been sunburned from being out for so long. She didn't look like my wife anymore. My wife had died months ago, but still I mourned. We buried her underneath the apple blossom tree in the back garden. I painted a white cross to mark her grave, and placed it as a headstone of sorts in the ground above her.

I wept there for many hours after the guests had left. I sat there on my knees with my face in my hands, angry hot tears running down my skin to water the ground beneath which lay my beloved Astor. When I rose, the sun had set. I went to the place where I had buried the book, and I dug it up. My tears continued to fall, and I paid no heed to how they sizzled and steamed when they struck the ground. My shovel hit the book, and I dug it out. Holding it in my hands, I noticed that it was not hot. Dirt was caked under my fingernails, but the book was so light and cool in my hands that I dared not put it down. With a sneer, I opened up the tome, and flipped through the pages. I screamed in rage. There were no words. I threw it to the ground and stomped on it, yelling and cursing the day it was made. I picked it up and carried it into the house. I left it on the table, but when I tried to go to sleep, I found that it was all I thought about. I got up and went to it again, gently taking it in my fingers and flipping to the first page. To my shock, there was text there, written in an even darker red than the pages themselves. How could this be? I read it through and flipped page after page, unable to put it down. When at last dawn came, my eyes were pained and weary from reading. It had nothing to do with the strange heat that the book had pumped up into my face while I read. I finally closed the book, and sat contemplating its contents. It spoke of an old war and an older beast. Destruction and ruin. On the very last page, there was a command. Curiously, I obeyed it, and thought not to my own welfare before I plunged my hands into flames. Next, it commanded me to kill. It began with small things- animals and birds- then progressed to my neighbor. I had never liked him anyway, so I took that same shovel with which I buried and unburied the red book, and I crept into old farmer Sorrel’s home. He awoke that night to see me standing over him. With my burn-scarred hands, I lifted the shovel and I beat him until his blood sprayed up at me. As I left the house, I smiled. I passed a mirror in his hallway, and caught a glimpse of myself. My hair came down my head in thin threads, and my eyes were red-rimmed and wide. I grinned. I had never looked better.

Aaaaand that's it! Creepy, relatively low description, just my messing around with a writing prompt that I found at about 12am this morning. I hope you enjoyed!

Blessings!

Marisa

All This Time

 I was a fairly normal kid. I went through some stuff that makes me stick out a bit, but overall, I was pretty average. I had friends who lived nearby, and we would knock on each other's doors to come play instead of texting if they were free. We played army (I was always the nurse who sang hymns to the wounded soldiers), and super heroes, we sneaked into the neighbors' backyards to catch tadpoles in the little stream behind their house, and run when we thought we heard someone coming. 

I also so much looked forward to growing up.  I thought it would be so simple. I'd get older, go to college, get married, have kids, and that would be it, right?

I didn't know that life isn't like that. It's not that easy. I didn't know that I would deal with 13+ years of PTSD from stuff that happened when I was a kid. I didn't know that a whole new trauma would occur when I struck out on my own and moved to another state. I didn't realize that when I moved back, my parents would move away, and my Pawpaw would die, and my church would fall apart- and me right with it. Even when I turned 15, and I got dunked under water to symbolize being washed by the blood of Jesus, I didn't know it would be this hard. I didn't think it would be easy, but I thought that the hardship would come in the form of persecution and standing up for Jesus. I didn't think it would be feeling like I'm slowly going mad, where one day praise is on my lips and the next, I don't know what I believe anymore. I didn't think that it would be like this. 

I thought that my whole life would be set to go. I had such a clear plan and idea of what would happen, but life will never be like that. It's messy. You make mistakes and hold them over yourself for years, you pretend to be okay because maybe if you tell yourself that enough times, you will be.  But I wasn't prepared for this. And now I'm losing my faith one mustard seed at a time, and I feel like I'm slowly going insane, and I don't know what to do because I'm screaming at a God that I'm trying to believe in, but it's not getting any easier. And I'm not asking for someone to tell me that God isn't real, and that is okay to think that because it's not. And I'm not asking for pity, or promises that it will get better.  I guess I'm asking for help. And also, what the hell were we all so excited about?

Heartbreak And History

 I'm not sure why I'm writing this here. I'm almost certain no one reads this blog, it's just another ghost wandering through the miles of words on a computer screen. 

I'm not doing very well. I can feel myself getting worse, and to be honest, a lot of the time, I wish it was over. I can't fathom having to continue this, and I just want to be done with the work and the frustration, and the echos of sin that I can never quite seem to outrun. 

But mostly, I'm just lonely. Alone, rather. Not to say I don't have friends, I do. I don't have swarms of people flooding around me, but I have a few close friends. But being the age I am now, I see those friends and my siblings falling in love, they get married and have kids, and I'm still stuck in the same place I was 5 years ago: single, living alone, trying to find a reason to keep going. All this has prompted me to start thinking about WHY I am so lonely. Why do we crave the company of others so deeply? What is it about closeness with someone else that draws our hearts in? 

I think that firstly, it's because we weren't made to be alone. I'm a born again Christian, so I believe that man was not meant to be alone. I think that inside us-in our souls, written in the very DNA that builds us as humans-there is a deep desire for togetherness. 

I read a myth once that said soulmates were originally fused together. They had four arms, four eyes, four legs, and the list goes on. They angered a deity who split them in half, dooming mankind to forever be searching for their other half. 

I'm not sure if I believe in soulmates, but I do believe that there is someone who completes us. I think that if we search hard enough, we can find that person who is so suited to us, that we supply all their needs, and they fill the holes left behind from heartbreak and history. 

That myth is just a story. But a large part of me hopes that somewhere there is a man who was made perfectly just for me. He likes mushrooms and eats them for me when we go out, and I know how to put a smile on his face after a long day. We tell each other funny stories from when we were kids, and cry over the pain we went through waiting to find one another.

I want to find someone so badly. Some days I feel like he's just around the corner, and if I wait just a bit longer, there he will be. Other days I think I'll have to figure out how to continue this cycle of wake, work, sleep until the end comes.

I'm sorry to those reading this, I guess I've got the winter blues. I'm sure it will pass. Tomorrow I'll wake up, and I'll get dressed and go to church, and try to think of better things. I might shed some tears, or perhaps I'll be lucky, and forget for a time how lonely I really am.

Growing Up Child

Wow. It's been so long since I've written a blog post, I can't believe it. I started this blog when I was 16 years old, and I thought I knew so much. That was almost a decade ago. 

The world is so much different than I thought it would be. So much has changed in my life- my home, my family, my priorities- and looking back on these blog posts, I feel silly remembering writing these and how strongly I believed in the things I wrote. My passion was so much greater, my sense of love purer, and my hands cleaner. 

I always thought I would go to college for writing, get married, have kids, and that would be it. None of those things have happened for me. I never went to college, I decided to focus on baking. It's something I really love, and enjoy to this day. But I never did make it to college like I thought. I moved to Ohio, actually. I lived with my best friend for a year, then a second one by myself. I moved back home where I belonged and have moved about 3 times since then, always a new adventure and way of life just around the corner. I thought that by the time I turned 24, my life would be perfect. I'd have a perfect little house in the country, a perfect husband, perfect kids, and a perfect life. But now I'm laying here on a wintery January afternoon, I'm by myself, just me and the ticking clock, and nothing is what I thought it was. 

I have...a good life. One that I often take for granted. I live in a cute little apartment in Holland. I am not a baker OR a writer- I haven't written a story in years. I've been writing mostly poetry lately. I work third shift doing something I'm not passionate about. So my day is Topsy turvy. I wake up at night and go to work, I scan inventory and measure parts that we make, then I come home to an empty house only to go to bed and do it all over. 

But I'm okay. I have my routine- on Fridays, I go right from work to the gas station, and from there to the store before heading home. I eat in the same spot every day (not at a dining room table, but on the floor sitting at my coffee table with my phone propped up on a cup of pens and pencils so I can watch something while I eat) I take showers and go to church, I spend weekends with my friend and her kids, and make every effort to see my baby nephew at least twice a week. 

I thought that when I grew up, I wouldn't have to worry about life anymore. I was wrong. I still do, but now it's about different things. I worry about saving money on fruit and paying rent every month. I worry about car problems and what I'm going to make for dinner. 

I used to strive just to feel a little normalcy, but honestly, now that I have a normal life where I work, sleep, eat, and go out with friends, I've found that desired normalcy to be wearing. I used to find every day to be an opportunity, now I wake up to the same grim surprise every night. 

I guess I'm saying that... life has a way of throwing you for a loop. God likes to forget my expectations and find a better way even if at the time it feels like the opposite. 

I have started a growing collection of regrets over the last 9 years. Some I've managed to patch up, others not so much. Ihave a whole load of beautiful new memories to add to my treasury. I'm in a different place and I do different things, but in many ways, I'm the same little girl I was so long ago who asked her mom if she could start a blog. 

Life changed so much since that little girl with aspirations of perfection was still on the surface of my consciousness. But I'm okay with that. Life is a series of changes, and all just around the corner. Enjoy living in the moment. The past is over, and the future is in many ways irrelevant. Focus on the present, it's okay to find things that make you feel alive. Apologize where it is due, never burn a bridge, and embrace as many people as you can. 

Find ways to be content with where you are in life, even if you do it by baking a chocolate cake so you can eat it all yourself. And in another decade, maybe you'll be sitting down to your own little routine, and you will wonder where all the time went. In other words, "life is short, eat the cake".

The Robot

I wrote a new poem, and I am actually really proud of myself. The meter isn't quite the same on each line, so I'm going to say it is a rhymed verse poem.
Yes, it is about a depressed robot, so *TRIGGER ALERT*.

The Robot

Bronze as the sun with a heart that was laden
A robot once walked where no flowers would waken
The robot was different, he wasn't the same
But the people around him all thought he was sane

He felt on some days as though he would explode
From the sounds all around him as he walked down the road
Was he going crazy? Was he insane?
No one understood-they all thought him inane

The darkness took over and showed on his face
All that he knew was he didn't belong in this place
He felt all alone and one day he decided
That maybe this life wasn't worth what he'd tried

The robot one day sat alone on a bridge
And he wondered and thought as he sat on the ridge
Would anyone notice if he disappeared?
Or was he as invisible as he feared?

He slipped one foot then another over the edge
And he straightened his back and let go of the ledge
He fell and he fell toward the icy cold
And then hit the surface-his face was still bold

And when they found him a few days later
All of those people they thought him greater
They told of the things that they had seen him do
How selfless he lived, how brave, and how true

They didn't know him-not as they thought
He was dying inside, but still he had fought
He had been dead long before he did jump
Long before all the words and the hurt made him slump

But now he was free of the hurt and the lies
He sits with the fishes and there he will lie
He sings every night of the things he was told:
That he didn't have feelings and how he stayed gold

And some nights when people feel strange, or feel sad
And stand on that bridge when they need to feel glad
He'll whisper a something that comforts their hearts
That will let them know that they can restart

"Tomorrow's a new day and you're a good soul
And you can start over and make yourself whole"
"The Robot will stay there," it's said, "Till he's done
Till no more sad people feel the need to run"

"He'll lay there beneath with his back still held straight
And then, when he's done, they'll know he was great."
The Robot is sadness in bodily form
The people are haters who bring on the storms

The bridge is the thoughts that plague us at night
The water the thing that gives them the sight
The song is our voices when we are long gone
And comfort to hold us when we seem to drown

You aren't alone, you will always have me
No matter where you are, no matter the scene
I will sing for you, I will hold tight
When no one else hears you, or can feel your light

My dearest, my darling, just hold on to this:
You are a blessing and deserve such bliss
Bring me your sadness, bring me your shame
Bring me your broken and bring me your blame

Just let me hold you when things seem so dark
And let me show you that there is a spark.
There is a something that makes this worth living
And it's time to take, instead of just giving.

You gave all your live, and give still in death
You breath forgiveness, and smile with breath
It's time just to take, and yourself forgive
And always remember that there's is a reason to live.

We are all Robots in a world of living flesh. Don't let it get you down.
To those of you who have friends who may be depressed, 6.7% of the U.S. population alone experience it in a given year. That's 14.8 million adults over 18 years of age every single year. Know the signs.

#knowthesigns

Love Is Like God's love of the Church

What is it about love that  touches us on every level? Why does the phrase "I love you" bring such joy to every heart?
Man gives a number of reasons, but the real reason is that every person on earth was born in the image of God. Since all love emanates from God, we are born with the capacity and the desire to love and to be loved. One of the strongest connections we have with Christ is how much He loves us. Even though we are separated from Him, whenever we sense a fraction of the love He showed to us, it awakens a longing and excitement that cannot be missed.

In the bible, love is likened to God's love of the church. When someone says those simple words that seem to mean so much these days, it reveals a happiness, and a fluttery feeling that this world may interpret as love. As I have said before, love is not a fuzzy feeling. I believe that one of the reasons that such an emotion is awakened in us is that we are reminded of the love Jesus has for us and His church. I believe that before we are even born, God sets our minds in such a way that we will be able to feel emotions, and have certain ideas, and do certain things that will impact the world, and I believe one of the things He implants in us is a fragment of His love.
Christ calls us to be like Him in His love of the Church: unconditionally.

"25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. " (Ephesians 5:25-28)

We are to be willing to do anything for our spouse, as well as to die for them if need be. But we are not only to show our unconditional love by sacrifice, but by washing them with water through the word. We must work to bring them closer to Christ even as we grow closer to Him. True love is not simply doing anything your spouse wants, but also correcting them when they are wrong, or pointing them to bible verses when they are sad, doing devotions with them etcetera. There is more than one way to love someone like Christ. We are also to present ourselves to them "as a radiant Church". We must rid ourselves of sin while we are helping eradicate it from our spouses. We follow the example of those we love, and we have to be careful not to lead those who love us into a trap of sin.
"He who loves his wife loves himself."

I hope you have all benefited from these last several posts about love. I have learned a lot, myself by researching for them. Maybe I'll do one next about being single? Drop some comments and let me know your opinions on the subject.

Happy Valentines Day, and God bless.

Marisa <3

Love Is Until Death

"I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you."

"In the name of God, I, ______, take you, ______, to be my wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow."

"I, ___, take you, ___, to be my husband/wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life."

There are many versions of wedding vows. The Hindus and Muslims may have a different way of saying it than a Calvinist might, but in all of these different versions, there is one constant, five words inserted near the end that change the outlook on it. 'Till death do us part'. This pledges a lifetime of all of those things. It does not allow room for "ifs", "ands", or "buts".

When someone dies, as a symbol of reverence. It is done to give the dead body dignity, and show that they are sleeping peacefully. It is a show of respect that is often awarded to the spouse to bestow. When you make the vow "till death do us part", you are telling them that you will be there to close their eyes. You will be there to make sure that they are cared for after death, and they, in turn, are making the same vow to you. There is no way that this vow could mean anything other than a promise to close the eyes of your beloved when they pass from this bleak world.

No matter what denomination or religion you come from, there will be some version of "till death do us part". That can't be a coincidence.

Many blessings.

Marisa

Love Is In Sickness And In Health

"I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you."

Love is not something that should have weather. "I will love you forever unless you ____", "I will love you for all eternity except when you___". Love is in health AND in sickness. Not just when we feel like it, or when it's easy. Love is not easy. It is hard. It is nearly impossible-no, I would say it is impossible to love someone easily. It may be easy at first, heck it may even be easy most of the time. But there is not a single relationship where it is always easy to love someone. 

Despite that, we need to look to Christ in the times when it is hard, and we need to remember that He loved us even at our worst. He loved us when we were sinful, and dirty, and He was willing to make us clean. We must be willing to see the clean side of our significant other even when the obvious side is dirty. It is easy to see the side that is not so pretty especially when we are busy looking at the good side in ourselves.
What we need to remember is that none of us is blameless, and none of us can do this alone. God gave us companions because He said "It is not good for man to be alone.". He knew from the very beginning that we needed someone to have and to hold, and if that isn't a reason to fight for it, then I don't know what is.


"Love is not supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be worth it."

"What comes easy won't last, and what lasts won't come easy."

Goodnight, gems.

Marisa

Love Is Honest

Love is honest.

You don't hear people talk about lies a lot these days. It's kind of a given that you are "allowed" to lie as long as it's for a good reason. How many times have you lied to your significant other because it was for a surprise, or because it was "just a little lie"? How many times have you "left out the truth" because it was "in their best interest"?
Honesty is a huge part of loving someone. It's been said that "Honesty is the highest form of intimacy". Loving someone is more than sharing secrets, it's making a promise to never lie, to always tell the truth.

There are so many instances in the bible that tell us this.

"Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." (1 Corinthians 13:6)

" Love must be honest and true. Hate what is evil. Hold on to what is good." (Romans 12:9)

"For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;" (1 Peter 3:10)

We must strive as people who are "taken"-and even more as Christians - to tell the truth no matter the consequences.

"Trust can only be given when honesty is guaranteed." If you are not honest with the person you love, there is not even a chance that they will ever be able to trust you. All lying does is tear apart relationships. We lie to ourselves, and we are torn apart. We lie to God, and we have sinned. We lie to our spouse, and there is a lack of trust that may never be able to be gained back.

One of the reasons I believe the people were all so drawn to Jesus when He walked among us was that He spoke truth to them. He didn't sugarcoat, He didn't lie about anything. He told them the truth, and that is what they were drawn to: Honesty.
 When you tell the truth, and refuse to lie, a bond is created that could never be there otherwise.

"Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil." (Matthew 5:37)

Stay honest, and you will never have a reason not to trust the one you love.

Many blessings,

Marisa

Love Is Forgiving

Love is forgiving.

You may have noticed that I skipped a topic. I accidentally missed a day, so I went right to forgiving. 

Love is forgiving. It does not hold a grudge. " It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.". 

God blesses us daily with His forgiveness, and thank goodness He does, because without it, we would all be in hell burning.

"There is no one righteous, not even one." We are all humans, we all sin, we all need forgiveness multiple times daily whether it is for saying something that shouldn't have been said, or for doing something that shouldn't have been done.

" I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, “But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me.”
He said, “My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee.”
I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face."

This poem rightly reminds us that we are all self-loving, unrighteous beggars before the throne of God, and all we have to offer is ourselves. We have no real treasures, our money could do Him no good. Even if everything we owned were not already His, it could never be enough to repay Him.
All we have is ourselves. Our own merciless, sinful, pitiful, begging, ungodly, ungrateful, forgiveness-needing selves. And simply because we have been forgiven, Jesus Christ asks us to forgive others as many times as they sin against us. Because as many times as we have sinned against Him, he forgave it all.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. Forgive easily.

Sweet dreams,

Marisa