The Sacrifice of Praise

The Sacrifice of Praise


So there I was – or rather, here I am—three whole days and nights without sleep and feeling faint and nauseated. I know, I know…it really is all my fault. I went off my regimen and I wasn’t as good about water. And bingo! The thing comes back with a vengeance. And then there’s younger son who’s been battling an autism headache for about five weeks.

So I’m looking up at the ceiling of our bedroom wondering if I should wake the beloved for sex so I can get two minutes sleep. If that. Then I got to thinking. Which is always a bad idea. I think about stuff when I should be sleeping. And the mind just won’t stop. So I think about having two husbands and what that would imply. Cause I’m working on my present novel but also cause honestly, having two husbands would be kinda fun. Then I think about the difference between Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, and the Mormon Heavenly Father. So I start listing. Yahweh co-labors with his people. The Bible is a collaboration with man. God even allows man to use the street language of the Greek empire to write the New Testament and even uses Paul’s petulance. YHVH loves humans and allows all his prophets to be themselves. Heck he even allows himself to be made powerless in certain situations unless human faith is applied to the situation. And of course He says He is love and that He is our Father. Allah doesn’t call himself love. In fact Allah is offended if we try to anthropomorphize him because he is beyond all that petty small human stuff. And of course his book, the Koran, fell perfectly formed with all its errors (In some sections it seems as if Mohammed believes Mary/Miriam Jesus mother was the sister of Moses. And he states that Alexander the Great was a great holy man who lived a long life because he was blessed by Allah. Not to mention places where it contradicts itself.) Then there is Buddha. A rich prince who lives in wealth and peace then has a nervous breakdown when he realizes how crappy life is for everyone else. Then reaches enlightenment and learns to accept that sorrows exist in the world…while he continues his good life. To be fair, though, Buddha doesn’t go around saying he is Creator. Just enlightened. So he really should be compared to the Son of Man (although Jesus is also co-Creator). At least Jesus grew up poor and connects to the poor and develops a theology of conquering evil, sin, sickness, death, demons. As opposed to rich stressed prince who tells us to accept and submit to evil and to aim for inner purity because our next life will be better or we will disappear into nothingness so it doesn’t really matter. Mercifully, Jesus promises us that we will keep our personality, and all the wonderful things we love as humans. Then there is the Mormon Heavenly Father who was once a man on another planet and grew to godhead then had sex with Mary (okay, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and the oldtimey Mormons believed this). But honestly, Heavenly Father is a God who vacillates, changes his mind, and just plain changes.

So then I got to thinking about writing a children’s book about two princes or two boys who both grow up. One having a life like Jesus and the other having a life like Buddha. Maybe I’ll call it Joshua and Bodie. And all the while I’m sleepy and nauseated and just can’t sleep. And in between I’m thinking of having two husbands. And all the time I hear younger son crying in his room as he has cried for 18 years of his life.

Then the alarm goes off and younger son comes to our room but not before he kicks the walls and some more plaster falls off. There are portions to our house where all you see is the wooden slats and the studs because a certain person is in pain and aggressively has to kick something or someone. So husband and I get up and look at each other and there is this wink of joy to each other and we start smiling at each other. Smiling and somewhat on the verge of laughing!!!! Now, isn’t this the grace of God? Sometimes our life is so odd and so weird --and it has been like this for so long—that we just end up laughing. I tell the beloved, I am so glad you are the one who are my husband! Weird life as it is, stressing and sad as it is, it certainly is an interesting experience.

Then I force myself to get out of bed because younger son drags me out of bed and kicking me and beating me up…as if dragging me out of bed and kicking me is gonna cure that headache. I start whining and getting weepy and saying how crappy and nauseated I feel. And husband starts singing. So what do I do? I join in. We start singing. Marantha songs, old-timey campmeeting, Anglican hymns, songs we’ve made up over the years. Sick and crappy though I was I waltzed through the house singing. That’s what the Bible calls the sacrifice of praise. I sang about the blood of Jesus and his victory over death. And I meant it too!

I totally believe in the sacrifice of praise. When I had older son I got the worst case of post-partum depression. Just this overwhelming fear of death and panic. It was awful. But one day I got so tired of it I got up in the middle of the night feeling so fearful and anxious and I sang my little heart out. And the sorrow just left. It’s been a fun morning. I sang and I sang. I know something happened in the spiritual realm because of all that singing. God’s word, the Bible, says something happens when we give the sacrifice of praise. And I believe God. And again I say, if I had to live this weird kind of life, there is no husband who has been a better match for this unplanned journey than the beloved.

Great is the Lord who enables us to fight the fight one day at a time, one hour at a time. I love him sooo much. -C

IF GOD Disappears by David Sanford

If God Disappears : 9 Faith Wreckers and What to Do about Them by David Sanford

Here's his blog


Here's the Blurb:

There is a difference between God disappearing and God leaving us. God has said, "I will never leave you."
God often seems absent when we need him most. How can we walk through troubling, even devastating times without shipwrecking our trust in God?

Here's a vid over at tyndale

and another



and another


Here it is on Christian Book

And Amazon

Being happy for others

Today I've got a bit of the blues. I suspect many moms in my position would be. My friend emailed me to say her son, about two years younger than my younger son, just got his first job. I was happy. Times fly! But at the same time, I have to admit I got all weepy. (sucking my teeth here cause I'm Jamaican and we Jamaicans do that to show our sorrow, etc.)

I get this way whenever someone's one year old kid starts talking or some other thing... I just have to bear up. It's not as if I'm not happy for them but then I just see how much the toxins in the world, food, medical vaccines have stolen my son's life from him.

Yet, I know that my redeemer lives. I know that God didn't make my son to have a life where no one understands what he says, a life where he has limited understanding of a Disney movie. I remember once I asked a Catholic priest to pray for my son. The jerk said, "Let me pray for you that you may bear the gracious gift God has given you." What an idiot! I can bear my own pain in my own body, thank you asshole pious theologian sentimentalist! But it takes a bit of nerve for me to say, "Yes, let me bear my son's loneliness. Let ME learn to live with his stomach and pain." I swear! Only a pious jerk would say that. And I told him so. YEP! I DID! I'm absolutely snippy with ministers who have sentimental crap always at the ready to say. And only a person who wasn't a parent would say that we are to accept our children's suffering...as if the suffering child isn't a person in his own right. (I didn't tell the priest that....at least I don't remember telling him that. Come to think of it...maybe I did. I can get pretty nasty when I'm riled. Plus being a minister's grand-daughter I have very little patience with ministers.)

Today I'm forcing the family to only eat fruits and veggies and nothing cooked for three days. Big aim: to get rid of son's congestion. Remember the old word "catarrh." The nutty health-nuts of days gone by used to use it. I totally believe it exists. And am doing what I have to do to get this kid cleaned up inside.

Trusting as usual the quick, active, healing word of God is working mightily in my son and me. And trying to be happy for my friends' son. I know that my redeemer liveth. -C

Fasting from wrong thinking #1

Okay, where to start? where to start?

So many wrong thoughts, so little time.

I think the quick, powerful, active word of God I will use to conquer my first negative thought is: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139.

Alas, I dislike and distrust my body.

I dislike it because when I was around 8 my half-sister said, "our father likes me better and makes me live with him because I'm light-skin and you're dark." Okay, she has forgiven herself for this but it has done major damage and caused a whole lotta self-loathing on my part. Of course, as an adult I know that she probably needed to believe this lie. She was born a month after I was born to my mother's best friend. My mother was married to my father. Hers wasn't. And hers never wanted her so after my mother had had it with my father's various adulteries and beatings and forced abortions....well, she divorced the man. But my half-sister wanted to believe this and I have no doubt the lie healed her...but it's brought be a great deal of grief. I have never felt beautiful. Yep, I used to model for the students at my college etc and people have said that I was very beautiful...but I never felt it. I don't even look in the mirror. (Yeah, I gave this trait to Satha my main character in Wind Follower.)

I also distrust my body. My mother was a nurse...Nurses are alarmists. They always think the body is going to fall apart on you. It doesn't help that I've had such a stressful life that my health broke and my body did kinda fall apart on me.

Remedy: With God all things are possible.
Remedy: It is never too late.

Prescription: I am going to get up every morning and walk to the mirror and say, "I praise you Lord because I am wonderfully and fearfully made." I hope I can say this thing with faith. I hope I can believe it when I say it. (Might have to remind myself of my sense of humor and how happy I have made my friends. Will see.) I hope I can actually look myself in the mirror. I truly don't know what I look like. I so wish I were saner...but alas, I am what I am. May God help me. Amen.

irrational or proven faith

Okay, once again Law and Order has shown religious people as being irrational. I swear you can always tell who the baddie is in these episodes. If it's a religious person who reads his Bible he's got to be the villain. And Law and Order is not the only television show that's guilty of this.

Why do they think Bible readers are irrational?

The Bible is the best book in the world. And folks who judge Bible readers really should consider many things if they want to say the Bible stifles critical thinking.

Movies always behave as if Bible believers are an uneducated bunch. True, many Bible lovers are uneducated. But others are quite educated.

Look at me. I totally believe the Bible is the word of God. Totally. My house has about 2000 Bible study books. Hey, I'm a lit major. I love studying. I learned how to do reading comprehension. I learned how to deal with writers like the Bible prophets who spoke symbolically and who digressed then returned to a point. I learned to link things together. I'm educated. Somewhat.

But many Christians -- black and white-- were taught by sweet little old ladies who had a dream of stopping crime or of preventing girls from becoming pregnant. They did well -- wonderful and noble deeds. In fact, their place in our community as teachers was often all the respect they had. And wanting to read the Bible was one of the reasons they learned to read. Although I don't know why so many of them think they actually fully comprehend Elizabethan English. Many a weird cult has begun because someone didn't understand Shakespearean English.

So yeah, some folks just don't understand reading comprehension, some don't research, some don't aim to improve their knowledge. Human pride, what can I say? Just because they are Christians doesn't mean they are immune to vanity or idiocy. They don't want to realize that they might need to know more. Does that mean uneducated people can't think? Or that the Bible has stopped their brains? Or that everyone who reads the Bible is an idiot? No.

The Bible for one has taught me a kind of divine cynicism. It shows us how humans fool each other and themselves. It teaches us to distrust humans and culture. Always a good thing. And it teaches us to study. The Bible isn't anti-reason. It simply demands that we distrust our fellow man and trust God's view of things.

What's wrong with a little authority about spiritual things? Doing without Sriptural authority is like remaking the wheel. If everyone started on their own wisdom path from scratch without looking to the works of their spiritual ancestors, we would all be starting out as cavemen. Why not say: "It is written that such and such a course is not good to take." Why not believe what other people have said? If the Bible tells us for instance that women should really be married before sleeping with men, why not believe it? God knows men are selfish, will abandon women, women will be raising children in povery. Why not trust it?

Anyone learning to read the Bible learns how to compare word to word, thought to thought, verse to verse. Even uneducated poor black grandmas and little kids learn to do this. We see a verse about sexual purity here. Then we see a verse which says a divorced man is like someone wearing the coat of a bloodshed victim (Malachi). Then we read a place where God says we must be satisfied with the breasts of the wife of our youth. Or that young men should avoide strange women. Or that when a woman is raped it is akin to murder. And all these little old ladies --including myself-- study those verses and come up with a general meaning.

Rational vs rational

Something else has to be clarified here:

The word "Rational" (as used by most people) has two distinct meanings.

A) It could refer to a thought pattern that does not operate in a logical manner.
B) It could refer to a conclusion arrived at that does not fit in with the listener's worldview.

The first meaning -- having to do with manner and pattern of a person's way of thinking-- can be useful for judging the Bible reader. But it doesn't really judge the Bible. There are many logical thinkers who read and believe the Bible. And there are many illogical thinkers who read and believer the Bible. Also, there are many logical thinkers who do not believe the Bible and many illogical thinkers who believe the Bible.

In the second case where "rational" refers to the conclusion -- whether logically or illogically arrived at-- then personal prejudices and worldview issues often come into play.


Stephen Hawking for instance may not believe in the Bible but he is a theist. Carl Sagan -- just as logical and perhaps not as smart-- is not a theist and simply did not believe in any kind of God. In a situation where someone is judging someone's rationality all sorts of questions can come up. Is the person thinking irrationally because he is insane? Because he has a different path to follow? Because he is "misinterpreting" some of the evidence/clues he sees?


Many Americans think Christians are irrational because they think the Christian is thinking in an unworldly way. But in Africa where the average person (Christian or otherwise) believes in the spirit world much more than the average American (Christian or otherwise) there wouldn't be a question about irrational thinking just because someone believes something that doesn't jibe with the scientific model of worldview -- closed universe and all that.

I've done many a thing that seems irrational and yet God and the Universe have continually shown me that I'm quite right. Indeed, I suspect that many a little Christian old lady (educated or not) has had the same experience and that's why they trust and love Jesus so much.

Three examples:

I once went into a GNC at the mall. A man walked past me. I heard "in my spirit" a voice that said: "This is so-and-so. He's the general manager of such-and-such a radio station." The name of there person and his title and his workplace. I walked over to the man and quite irrationally said, "Hi, are you so and so?" He said, "I am." I did not behave irrationally, mind you. I didn't go over and tell him that the holy spirit had told me who he was. So I had some sense. But still, it is kind of irrational to believe some weird bit of information one hears in one's spirit.

Another time, I was working on my novel Wind Follower (to be published in June). I decided on a whim to make the main character an epileptic and needed a name to call the illness. I decided on "the falling sickness." Wrote a scene. Got up from my computer. On a lark I turned on the TV and flipped through the channel. I saw some guys in togas. Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar. As I listened I heard one character say, "well you know Ceasar has the falling sickness."

Another time, I finished writing a scene where a character tells another character he should change his name from Stevie to Steve because Stevie sounds so childish. I went upstairs and although I NEVER turn the radio on at night, turned it on for some strange reasons. A guy was calling in to the DJ. He said, "My girlfriend thinks I should quit calling myself Stevie because it's too childish." Kid you not.


I remember one day about nine months after my older son was born. I was sitting in my room watching my son playing with blocks. I heard --in the way one hears these things-- in my spirit the clear words "rest." It was so clear that I looked around. I walked over to my son and he had taken the letters R E S T and placed them in perfect order forming the word rest. He was only nine months. I should have learned to rest. I didn't and not resting after childbirth proved to be very harmful to my health for about 20 years.

I remember once I got some money and I was wondering who to give my tithe to. I said a prayer, "Lord, who should I give this tithe to?"

Immediately the name of a friend across the country was impressed upon me. It was so strange to hear that name in my heart that I suddenly stood still. I thought, "that was weird!" Generally, guidance didn't come so quickly and the name had come so suddenly and so clearly after the prayer...I found myself thinking that the idea had come from my own mind. And yet, it was so weird to suddenly get this girl's name in my head. I decided to tithe the money to her.

Then, I said...I could send her a check...but I had bounced checks recently and I was bounce-wary. All I needed was to pay $50 to my bank for bouncing a check written as a gift to a friend, and then my friend's bank would also charge her for the bounce. So a gift check for $50 would cost $150 by the time everything was said and done. (Okay, I get nervous and like I said I was very nervous about bouncing a check.)

Then I thought I would send the money as cash. But then I got nervous about that. Cash might get lost in the mail. Then I thought about a money order. But I didn't want to go to the bank or the post office to write a money order. Hey, it's cold in winter in NY and I didn't want to deal with it.

I decided on pay-pal. But I had to wait until the check I had received cleared and went into my paypal account.

Anyway, one night about four days after this quandary and decision, I went online to check if my money was in paypal. It wasn't. Later that night, instead of going to bed, I went downstairs again and for some weird reason (thank you, God) turned on the computer and went online to paypal. The money was there!

I transferred the money from my paypal account to my friend's paypal account.

The next morning my friend emailed me. It seems that the night before -- the night i felt the need to as transfer the money to my friend's account -- my friend was driving home from the hospital with her sick husband. She was miles away from home. Maybe 40 miles. And had run out of gas. She had no money left in her checking account and on a whim (thank you, God) decided to check her paypal account. Voila, the money I had sent her was in it. She hadn't even expected it. But that money got her gas and got her home from the hospital.

I love when God does stuff like that. It makes me feel that yes I do hear from God. It makes my friend know that God is aware of her. It makes us both know that God is aware of the future and provides for the future in the present. Isn't our God good? IT just makes me so happy when stuff like this happens. And they happen all the time. Doesn't it just make you roll your eyes when some atheist says that only idiots think that God exists? Hey, if this kind of lovely stuff is what happens to idiots, may I be an idiot forever!

Thank you Jesus.

I cannot tell you the amount of times my life and my family's life have been saved or my children's life by trusting the irrational.

We Christians call that kind of thing "God winks." It the situation is death-defying, we call them "testimonies of God's protection." These events are odd and a Christian's trust in them is utterly irrational. But it gives us a feeling of being loved. And while everyone has some odd thing happen to them once in a while, these things tend to happen incredibly frequently to Bible-believers.