The United States Christian Commission

The United States Christian Commission was founded during the U. S. Civil War.

My husband and I are Civil War aficionados. Me admittedly reluctantly. I long for the day that we will study war no more.

Mostly I support my husband in his combined hobby of woodworking and researching the war. We have a home based business that supports the hobby (almost).

It is just something that we have been able to build and share together. I do the web work, the graphic design and such, and he does the building.

Doing research I discovered the Christian Commission. It seemed to just fit perfectly with all else that I do, pandemic preparedness.

Heroes of Faith during the Civil War

From Wikipedia:

The United States Christian Commission was an important agency of the Union during the American Civil War. It was religious in nature but provided as well numerous social services and recreation to the soldiers of the U.S. Army. It provided Protestant chaplains, and social workers, and collaborated with the Sanitary Commission in providing medical services.

The Christian Commission was created in response to the disastrous First Battle of Bull Run. On November 14, 1861, the National Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association called a convention which met in New York City. The work of the United States Christian Commission was outlined and the organization completed next day. Two of the founding members were Vincent Colyer, who was inspired to start the organization after seeing the aftermath of the battle, and George Stuart, a well-to-do business man.

The YMCA and the protestant ministers formed the USCC. The civilians on the battlefield did not have weapons but just their care & love for the Christ. The original plan of the USCC was to help the priests of the armed services in their daily work, as the chaplancy program was in its infancy, with only some thirty members.

One famous U.S.C.C. delegate was John Chamberlain, who served on Little Round Top along with his brothers, Tom and Joshua Chamberlain. Louisa May Alcott also worked with the Commission, as did Georgia McClellan, the sister of Jenny Wade.

 

I have participated in a few living history events. And a couple of reenactments. I do have an appreciation for the hobby and a deeper appreciation for remembering lessons learned from history.

Campus Crusades for Christ has a Military Ministry. During a pandemic a civilian social service ministry would be a real blessing to many.

So I am praying mightily about this. I have been for quite some time now.

Technorati Tags: US Christian Commission,Christian Commission 2008,Pandemic Preparedness

It’s not what you feel that is important

It is what you

know to be true that matters.

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Ephesians 4

Unity of the Spirit

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

Therefore it says,

         “WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH,

         HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES,

         AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN.”

(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?

He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.)

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

The Christian’s Walk

So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,

being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous,  have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another.

BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.

He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

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What do you do in secret? What do you want to hide? Why do you continue to do them?

The Apostle Paul understood this conflict in our dual nature.

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Romans 7:14-25

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.  For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.

So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

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There sometimes is a gap between perfection in Christ Jesus and excuses and rationalizations made. Sanctification is a long process. We grow in grace and wisdom until the day we die.

And it is here that I am learning the height, depth, and width of what it means to be able to rest in the arms of Jesus Christ. Trusting His loving care, His gentle healing touch as He works out the knots in my life. Through this healing, I am able to live in the light more and more.

I am also able to use the old dirty rags that I have cast off as a way to understand how others still walk in the world.

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John 17:11-17

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

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And yet if we forget what our old dirty rags were, sometimes we become like clanging cymbals. Love and compassion leave us and we become haughty and puffed up.

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1 Corinthians 13

The Excellence of Love

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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“Occupy till I come”

Luke 19:13 (KJV)

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Technorati Tags: Unity of the Spirit,Love Out Loud,Occupy till I come

The art is still a work in progress…a long and necessary explanation

My journey from here to there has been hard fought.

Forgiveness is so important. The hardest thing to learn was to forgive myself. I have always been able to forgive others but forgiveness for myself always slipped through my fingers. I was always told that I set very high standards and goals for myself, almost unattainable ones. I guess this still has not changed.

I always felt a heavy burden of responsibility. A loss of innocence so young brings a harsh type of wisdom that seems to age the soul. As and adult looking back at my childhood I thought I should have been able to save others from the same fate. that I suffered. I failed to warn others. I failed to open my mouth and speak. I was a child, and my understanding was as a child. Forgivable yes, but I learned a valuable lesson. Speak while you can.

Childhood left me at age 6, the adults in my life had the burden of responsibility to protect me. They did not. I prayed to be able to put away the childish things so that I would be able to speak if the situation presented itself again.

Over the span of my life I had internalized the hurt and hardened my heart. I needed to understand the human condition. I prayed to see others as Jesus sees them and to be able to love others as He loves us. Sometimes there is no justice this side of heaven. I needed cleansing and healing, Again I prayed for the ability to forgive.

Along the way I shared with others, and they with me, many of the stories of our lives. So many people shared their hurts, their childhood experiences, their lives. We prayed for each other. We cried with each other. We healed with each other.

Still to this day, I have no idea why at this point in my life I could share all of my years of struggle. Where psychiatrists and psychologists longed to tread and couldn’t, the forums could. I spilled my guts.

I know that I sounded pretty odd. Probably quite narcissistic. But I had to learn how to trust others. And it was like I had carried these suitcases full of stuff as far as I was going to carry them so I was throwing them down. All sorts of laundry was spilling out and I was trampling all over it.

Digital “talk” therapy. The modern day equivalent to psychoanalysis. And all for a few pennies a day.

So.

Here I was learning all that I could about pandemic influenza, its effects, vaccines, their effects, world health politics, US health policy, and trying to understand why it was something that held my attention for so long.

Always the student of prophecy I saw a pandemic of  H5N1 Influenza as one of the next big events. Many things are happening at break neck speed now.

But pandemics, there were so few on this path it seemed at times. I questioned my discernment. I questioned why I saw something that my brothers and sisters did not see or care about. I questioned because…

There was an is an additional burden of responsibility for  me in this pandemic preparedness message. Speaking about what is to come, if wrong about it, one should be stoned.

It simply is not right and it is unjustifiable if we take the focus away from Jesus Christ and the living, breathing, Word of God. To focus on warning the world of a pandemic, I always felt this weight to the words that I was speaking.

Was it me being me again? Or was this burden because I was speaking about something that I shouldn’t be speaking about. Or was I walking in obedience and doing what I was supposed to be doing. I could only pray that what I was doing was right and pleasing to the Lord.

I pray to God that I could never willingly or unwillingly deceive any other person. I even prayed that He would strike me dead before I would say or do anything that was not pleasing to God. For months, I kept praying this way.

And then I realized why an influenza pandemic was/is weighing so heavily on my heart and pushing me on and on and on.

It’s the children and the impact on their lives. Our children, all of the children. All of the innocents. And it is the sudden death of millions of people who have not prepared spiritually.

I CANNOT BE SILENT. NOT THIS TIME. NOT NOW. NOT WHILE I STILL HAVE BREATH IN MY LUNGS.

When I was a child I could not stop the hurt from being visited on others. But now I can speak in order to protect children from what I know can happen, what does happen, to children in disasters.

And I can tell people about how knowing Jesus Christ has healed me. How He, as my personal Lord and Messiah , has changed my life and my heart. And how He makes Himself freely available to all.  

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It isn’t that I am unaware of the different Christian theories of the times we are living in. I am a student of prophecy, and I prayed for all the gifts.

Bearing false witness is a sin that I take seriously. Bearing false witness can also happen when we attribute titles to world leaders when those titles may be far from the truth. Being the judge of another persons heart is a very dangerous thing to do.

The man of perdition will be revealed when God wants to reveal him.

Know the fruit of a person that is the only way to discern how we are respond. In forums we call it attacking the post and not the poster. There is wisdom to this.

Also, I do not need to be judging anyone else’s heart in order to be out doing what my Heavenly Father wants me to be doing.

I have not been shy about speaking out lately. The times that I spoke out harshly to those in authority, I was convicted in my heart.

But we do live in precarious times. We are aware how what happens today will be used against others in times ahead.

Some issues are already pressing on some Christians minds.

Take for example vaccines and the dreaded mark of the beast. Acts 17:11.

At this point it is my understanding that there is a lot more to accepting the mark than accepting a vaccine that you aren’t sure is “treated” with new and strange adjuvants.

As soon as possible me and mine will be getting this years flu shot and I have already had three pneumonia shots in my life.

Bowing down and accepting the mark, I think that there will be no doubt, there will be no question or confusion about the choice being made. But maybe I am wrong here. Just like we have a choice now. We have to choose to open our hearts to Jesus Christ, the antithesis will be to knowingly and willfully accept the other.

Sickness, death, destruction, despair, may be what precipitates the choice. Is this where we are heading? Are we approaching that time? Will believers now be faced with that choice? I do not know the future. I only can attempt to discern the time now.

Illuminati and all that other stuff that get’s bantered around in some Christian circles, it seems to me that this is what keeps some of us in fear and paralyzed from doing what is right.

Even if the worst of myths and tales from the dark side are true, should that keep us from loving others, from being in the world, and being about our Father’s business?

We have no reason to fear anything. Not even pestilence and pandemics. We have a reason for outrageous hope. And preparedness is a way to love others.

But even in that I do not compel others, not really. We do what we are called to do. We all have gifts and talents, I just hope and pray that we all find them and are making good use of them as believers when our Lord Jesus returns. I can only hold the mirror up to my own heart.

Technorati Tags: vaccines,mark of the beast,Acts 17:11,myth,distortion,discernment