Bible Insights ... Calming the storm

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Bible insights on Mark 4 verses ..

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Bible Insight ... The Mustard Seed

Insights into the scripture Mark 4 22-34

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Bible Insights ...' Who is my mother and my brothers..'

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This scripture is Mark 3 31-35 'who is my mother.."not recorded so you'll need to read it first !

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Bible Insights ... The Sabbath

Some of the Bible Insights from prayer meetings in the rooftop chapel are being recorded/filmed and will be available on the blog and can also be embedded in your own webpages, blogs etc if you'd like to share them with others;just paste the embed codes. Copies of talks on CD's or Mp3's may be available later if needed.

Below is the first one , the reading is Mark Chapter 3 verses 1 to 6 .

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Try listening using headphones or good speakers, (Manila traffic is loud ! )

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Christmas in Bethlehem..

Eddie's Birthday

Deer Sanctuary / Falling Leaves

The Old Fisherman

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man.

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“Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face -- lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus ‘til morning.”

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He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face...I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments...” For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”

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I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag.

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When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

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At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the spare room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.”

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He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.

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In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

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When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!”

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Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness’ would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

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Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse, As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend changed my mind.

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“I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven.

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“Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.”

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All this happened long ago and now, in God’s garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b)

A song called Angels by Tami Leah & Anna and a video from Bosnia
Visit http://www.mirmedjugorje.org for more information

The Miracle of Our Lady Del Pilar

In 1637, a youngster employed on a farm, Juan Miguel Pellicer, born in Calanda, Spain in a family of seven children, fell from a cart. A wheel broke his right leg, crushing the tibia right down the middle. He was admitted to a hospital in Valencia on August 3, 1637, and then transferred to the royal hospital in Zaragoza in early October.

Reduced to begging, he tried different remedies in vain. At the end of October, his leg was amputated four fingers above the knee. He left the hospital in the spring of 1638 and returned to live in Calanda, among his own. The night of March 29, 1640, he slept in a room with his parents. Juan Miguel prayed to Our Lady of the Pilar before going to bed and then he had a dream in which he saw the Blessed Virgin rubbing his sore stump with oil from the lamps in the chapel of Saragossa.

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In the morning, his father discovered two feet under the covers: the amputated leg had returned. A canonical trial began on June 5, 1640. On April 22, 1641, the municipality of Calanda chose Our Lady of the Pilar as its patron saint. On April 27, Bishop Apaolaza, Archbishop of Zaragoza, declared: "We say, vote and declare that Juan Miguel Pellicer (...) has miraculously recovered his right leg which previously had been amputated. This restitution is not the work of nature, but was carried out in a miraculous and admirable way and should be recognized as a miracle."

A medal to commemorate the miracle was struck in 1671.

(( Photo licence : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ ))

Unto the Lamb

Video of the song "unto the Lamb" by Karl Kohlhase and pictures depicting some scenes from the book of Revelation by Pat Marvenko Smith.

Please Note Images are Copyright 1982/2002 - http://www.revelationillustrated.com/

Music can be downloaded for FREE from http://www.k4communications.com/karl

Radiation Shield

During the Second World War, an atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima. A mile around the place of the impact, there was not a soul alive. A desert of death! Yet one house made of a straw thatched roof was left standing near the parish church, 8 blocks from the epicenter of the explosion.

As incredible as it may seem, that house remained absolutely intact. It was the Rectory of the Jesuits. Eight priests lived there. None of them were physically or psychologically affected by the bomb. Not only did they come out of the tragedy alive, but they were in perfect health. They died at an old age many years later. Father Hubert Schiffer, one of the Jesuits, was 30 years old when the bomb exploded. He lived 33 more years in good health before he died in Frankfurt in 1982. In July 1976, at the Eucharistic Congress held in Philadelphia (USA), he publicly witnessed the whole story. I happened to be there. At the time, the 8 members of the Jesuit community were still alive.

Experts looked into this enigma for years and years, using with the best of instruments and searching with passion the best clues for a hidden force in the construction of the house. How could the house, having nothing special and looking like a simple Japanese house, have possibly resisted such a cataclysm? Also the Jesuits were examined by over 200 scientists.

The conclusion was always the same, they did not understand how these men could have survived in the middle of the hecatomb when all the other living beings had perished by the thousands. As for them, the Jesuits knew. But though they kept on saying the truth and proclaiming it from the rooftops, no one would believe them.

Their answer was not a "scientific"one! Father Hubert explained that he owed this protection to the Blessed Mother since he and his brothers had put into practice what she had asked for in Fatima (1917).He declared to the experts, "I was in the center of the atomic explosion and I am still alive, safe and sound. I was not touched by the bomb." "In our house,", he said, "There was only one thing different from the other houses: each day, we would gather and recite the Rosary together!".

Mercy

A Song by Paul Lisney called 'Jesus of Mercy' and video clips from the TV series Jesus of Nazareth.

Ever wondered what Jesus was writing in the sand ? (near the end of the clip)

Hard Times

During the Great Depression, there was a man who lost his job, his wife, his home and his fortune. He hung on tightly to the one thing he still had left . . . his faith in God.

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One day, he stopped to watch some men doing stonework on a church. One of the workers was chiseling a triangular piece of stone. He asked the worker, "What are you going to do with that?"

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"See that little opening way up there near the spire?" the worker asked. "Well, I'm shaping this piece of stone down here . . . so it will fit up in there."

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As he walked away, tears filled his eyes, for it seemed God had spoken through that worker to explain the ordeal he currently was experiencing: "I'm shaping you down here, so you will fit in up here."

Create in Me ..

Video of the countryside & its wildlife and a song by Karl Kohlhase called 'Create in Me'

Have a nice day !

This is God. Today I will be handling All of your problems for you. I do Not need your help. So, have a nice day. I love you.

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P.S. And, remember... If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do Not attempt to resolve it yourself! Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for God to do) box. I will get to it in MY TIME. All situations will be resolved, but in My time, not yours.

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Instead, focus on all the wonderful things that are present in your life now. Once the matter is placed into the box, do not hold onto it by worrying about it. If you find yourself stuck in traffic, don't despair. There are people in this world for whom driving is an unheard of privilege.

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Should you have a bad day at work; think of the man who has been out of work for years. Should you despair over a relationship gone bad; think of the person who has never known what it's like to love and be loved in return.

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Should you grieve the passing of another weekend; think of the woman in dire straits, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week to feed her children. Should your car break down, leaving you miles away from assistance; think of the paraplegic who would love the opportunity to take that walk.

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Should you notice a new gray hair in the mirror; think of the cancer patient in chemo who wishes she had hair to examine. Should you find yourself at a loss and pondering what is life all about, asking what is my purpose? Be thankful. There are those who didn't live long enough to get the opportunity.

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Should you find yourself the victim of other people's bitterness, ignorance, smallness or insecurities; remember, things could be worse. You could be one of them!

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Should you decide to send this to a friend; Thank you. You may have touched their life in ways you will never know! Now, you have a nice day.

GOD

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God has seen you struggling, God says it's over. A blessing is coming your way. After all, GOD loves you anyway.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...

Going Home...

A song called going home by Paul Lisney and some artworks by Edvard Munch and Elizabeth Wang to tell the story..brilliant song

Three Hairs..

There was once a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and noticed she had only three hairs on her head."Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today," so she did and she had a wonderful day.

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The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw she had only two hairs on her head."HMM," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today," and she did and she had a grand day.

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The next morning she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw she had only one hair left on her head."Well," she said, "Today I'm going to wear my hair in a ponytail." So she did and it was a fun, fun day.

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The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head."YEAH!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!"

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Remember you may not be able to control what someone says or does or some of the situations that life throws at you, but you can sure control the way you react.

Psalm of David

An old film clip from Jerusalem (1936) and the Psalm of David by Katuv. See http://www.katuvmusic.com