“The RoseBouquet”

Perhaps you have a vivid imagination and ought to be a writer. There is a lot you would like to learn first. Fortunately, I’ve already put some helpful materials into my Author’s Arbour.

Besides my friendship lures like the
Let’s Get Acquainted! forms,
Goal-setting advice,
Mentoring suggestions, and my
Patio or (photo stories)

there are useful pages for writers and wannabes;
Write 4 Kids,
Writing Links,
Writing Tips, and a chance to
Tell me Your Story.

I also run syndicated articles on writing topics like;
Writing 4 Success,
Ebook Publishing, and
Spilled Candy - on writing the novel and promoting yourself as the author.

In my early teens I began to daydream and fantasize about a wonderful and perfect husband. He would be ever so attentive and understanding, and have marvelous solutions for every problem that I might have. He would love kids as much as I, and very quickly, we would start adopting all kinds of needy and unwanted kids. More than that, we’d take in even adults who needed to start life over, and train them to be tutors, and to help look after all our children.

These scenes were all so vivid to me that l I became convinced this was God’s plan for me. I looked forward to all this, as if it were prophesied! My one main hurdle was, I couldn’t make it happen. I could only wait and pray for it. I learned a lot about prayer over the years as I wanted to be sure I wasn’t hindering God from making it all come to pass.

No one ever explained to me the difference between visions and the gift of a vivid imagination.

In 1979, and again in 1980, and 1981, I attended a seminar in Toronto, on the very most basic life principles in God’s Word. Gradually, without any other mentor, but my BEST Friend, Jesus, during long, long prayer times, the Bible, and some books, I began to understand the truth. I wanted so very much to please the Lord, however, it wasn’t easy to give up my dreams of this wonderful husband and all those kids that were so very real to me. I would brokenly surrender them all up to the Lord in prayer, and moments later find myself having a mental conversation with one of them!

It took several months in the spring of 1981 and through the summer for my decision to trust the Lord to be my only Lover and Husband to take hold in my sub-conscious. By the end of that summer though, I seemed to have a totally new attitude. I grew very intimate with the Lord, totally devoted to Him, and found I could praise and worship God better than ever before.

That giving up stage was like mourning the death of a bunch of dear family members. Yet now when I look back, I see that God did what He promised in Jeremiah 31:13b, where He said, “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.”

I needed to let go of that fantasy husband and family before God could introduce me to the idea of going home to care for my parents. When I made that decision in ‘83, I really truly gave up the dreams; they could never come to pass in Hague.

Leaving a circle of good and very real friends, meant that I had to throw myself more and more into the arms of the Lord, as I started life over again in a small town, where I still do not really feel understood.

Ah, but all of that has turned out for my good and God’s glory! I’ve learned many lessons of walking by faith, and since Mom died, how to use the internet for business and mentoring, and friend-gathering. Oh, and becoming a prolific writer! Now I understand what a gift a vivid imagination is for! It was meant to make me a writer all along!

Now I can give my alter ego, Ruthe, the heroine of my novel, all the romance I dreamed up years ago. There was nothing wrong with my lovely fantasies except that they were NOT a prediction of what I would experience. Furthermore, a writer does have the power to make anything happen in a book. All impossibilities can be overcome. Really!

Only now I have to discipline myself to get that second book written and ready to publish.

To read sample chapters of my first book online, start at the book’s index

To order the e-book to download and read on your computer; Order Page
(or if you email me, we can make a deal and I’ll send it to you on CD).

To order the softcover paperback from Booklocker use; BookLocker.com

If Mom had seen me yesterday she would have laughed. She was a very serious person and didn’t laugh often, but somehow I could hear and see her doing it.

You see, for many years Mom was too weak to do any housework, but she liked to stay at her chair at the table after meals to watch me work in the kitchen until she really had to lie down, (which she avoided doing in bed if at all possible).

If I said at breakfast, “Elsie phoned last night, and she and the kids are coming for the weekend. They’ll be here for supper tonight,” then Mom would immediately start talking about we HAVE to bake! Short-hand for she wanted her fresh air buns or kringle to offer the guests. Since she couldn’t do it, I’d have to. Meanwhile, I was casting my eye about and thinking, “I’ve got’a clean up this place! Look at that filthy floor!”

So I ended up mixing the dough and Mom supervised, making sure I used the right bowls, spoons, etc., and that I waited until the yeast had risen just right. I never did enjoy that work though, and soon was muttering about how the dough was sticking to me AGAIN. Odd thing, Mom’s fingers were like icicles, and the dough never stuck to her hands, while mine got all gooey. Mom did not like me to add too much extra flour though because she was afraid her buns would not be as light and fluffy, so she usually scolded when I added more flour.

Almost every time I vowed that in the future I was going to do very little baking, if any.

Well…, I’ve changed my tune. I baked quick breads for quite a while, and devised my own recipes for some super-duper high-fibre fruit and nut breads. But in recent months I’ve tried making some healthy brown buns because Dad hankered after some, and of course, I tasted, and have acquired a fondness for brown buns myself. This week I saw that we were down to 4 and then 2 buns by Monday supper. Yesterday morning I was determined to make another bun dough and started before breakfast while waiting for Dad.

By trial and error I’m still working at solving the sticky dough stage when I’m kneeding it, but the thought that I was making buns without anyone urging me to just got me thinking of Mom watching there and laughing in surprise. “What? You like baking buns now?”

Dad, incidentally, has been knitting himself socks. I took a couple of shots to show you, but with that mini-digital which has poor quality. Dad Knitting

More of the same as I’ve been doing. I’m re-dressing the Ruthes-SecretRoses.com site, and the BouquetofEnterprises.biz site, giving each an hour a day, unless it gets pre-empted.

Saturday night I started the renovations on AGodlyInheritance.com in earnest. Got the Forums up now, and two pages re-done so that people can actually find my blogs and the forums. Hopefully that will really zoom along this coming Saturday night. The hardest part is always fixing up the new template. Now that I have that done, I can simply copy and paste the contents of the old pages into the template, rename it after the old page, and it’s done.

I case you want to peek in at the Forums

One other thing I could announce is that yesterday I added some links to the “In the Garden” (song) page. It’s the page that gets me the most feedback, but lately people have written to ask where they can get a CD or tape with someone singing it. I decided to look up musicians who include it and provide links to their products. I think I’ll find some more yet, but I did put up a small batch of links yesterday. So if you love that dear old gospel song, that starts,
“I come to the garden alone,
while the dew is still on the roses,
and the voice I hear,
falling on my ear
the Son of God discloses…” then you’ll want to check this page again now;
In the Garden

Have you been needing a word of encouragement and affirmation?
This site has a lovely little movie of fine pictures and words to warm your heart!
http://www.wisehearts.com/yaam.html

If you are looking for books or music, and need the most economical prices online, you are looking for
ChristianBook.com, where they have
Song Search

Great Deals, and
Giveaways!

Links Between Sin and Sicknesses

Sickness is the sequel to sin, and the prologue to death. It is not popular to say that certain sins lead to certain kinds of sickness as a consequence. I believe certain types of illness give clues as to what sins to look for to confess. For example; feasting and over indulgence lead to weight problems. Drinking and bodily lust is self-abuse and leads to other problems. Suppressed anger brings out physical discomfort. In short, pain. Our body merely displays what is going on in our spirit and soul. It makes our spiritual problems visible.

Our Lord Jesus is our Great Physician or Doctor. Just as He has power to destroy and completely erase our sins so they will not be held against us in the Day of Judgment, so He also has power to heal our bodies and undo the ravages of our sinful decisions in the past. He is not all-powerful in one area and handicapped in another.

Furthermore, some day in Heaven God intends to give us new, glorified bodies of another dimension. They will never decay and will have wonderful transport features, and oh, much-much more!

Sickness as Chastisement or Discipline

This is given by God to some believers to prompt them to evaluate and judge their own spiritual state and clear up mistakes. However, it generally happens only to mature believers. If you are an immature baby Christian chances are low that you’ll be allowed to receive illness or disease as a warning to stop sinning. Many people fear this however,, and it upsets their faith in God.

There are other Christians who use the story of the blind man in John chapter 9 to insist up and down that sickness is NEVER God’s chastisement due to sin. Jesus did not said that. He only told His disciples not prejudge or condemn someone as if they were despised of God because they were sick.

Sometimes the infirmities of those born imperfect in body or mind are not due to their own sins, but those of their parents and grandparents. Even then, God gives them special grace and puts loving people in their lives who can be blessed for taking care of the helpless.

Those who are chastised by sickness (by God’s permissive will) usually are the holiest of Believers. Like Job, when they get right with God, their sickness clears up. Blessings return.

Detect what has come between you and God, confess and renounce that, and if others have been harmed to make restoration to them. Then simply believe God has accepted your repentance and offer yourself afresh to God, fully disposed to obey Him. Ask for healing, and most often the illness will be removed.

Evil and adversity reveal our true condition. They do not add sin, but reveal what sin is in us. Sickness allows us to see how much we really live for ourselves.

Strong-willed People

God chastens after love’s persuasion has lost it’s effectiveness. When He permits sickness, it is for a purpose; to break down our self-love, which has a special relationship to our body. We never know how much we love ourselves until we become sick!

Strong-willed or self-determined people don’t give up their will until they are at the gates of death. Very often, the more ill they get, the more they dwell on their symptoms, and get anxious to find a cure. Some become bewitched by their illness and dwell on it day and night. How much it hurts, what kind of care they are getting, or not getting - it becomes an obsession.

Devoted and Healed!

Rather we ought to become engrossed with God. Love Him and spend as much time as you can tear away from other things to be with Him, praise Him, and listen to Him speak to you through His Word. This is not groveling in shame and repentance any more. This is sweet fellowship with our God and our King! If we attain that kind of intimacy with God, it would be the height of tragedy if we failed to also claim the healing He promises to give us. All we need to do is ask and receive it by faith! Like a loving, tender human Daddy, our Heavenly Father delights to give us gifts, and He certainly wants us to be well, and able to praise and serve Him even more!

What About Healing through Drugs?

God sometimes uses intermediaries to show off His power and glory in our lives and bodies. But in the last 100-200 years almost everyone, including Believers, has come to trust and ascribe more power to heal to various medicines than they do to God.

Some are able to use medicine without harming their spiritual life. They give all the glory to God. Believer may ask God to bless the drugs to be cured, - they may also thank God, and regard themselves as being cured by Him. However, is that quite the same as taking the life of Jesus Christ to be the power that heals? It might be enough if “cure” was the only goal of God. He has other goals for us like maturity in faith and obedience.

Although I have not fully attained to this, I do believe that healing that comes by depending only on God and trusting His promises has spiritual benefits that last much better and longer.

When a Believer denies human means and trusts the Father for healing, that Believer’s faith will wax stronger. If healing is instant, praise God! If symptoms grow worse - look to God and furnish no occasion for self-love. God may be using this health crisis to extinguish our last drops of self-love.

Some want to stay stick because they feel closer to God when they are helpless and leaning totally on Him. Then it is time to learn to love Him while well; it is better to be healed!

If God does not remove infirmity after it is no longer need, it may be because we have not asked for healing. ASK Already!

2006(c) Ruth Marlene Friesen

To read sample chapters of my book online, start at Online Index

To order the e-book to download and read on your computer; Download novel
(or if you email me, we can make a deal and I’ll send it to you on CD).

To order the softcover paperback from Booklocker use; from Booklocker