The LOW Down Joy

 [Thank you Lee for well wishes re mine and Lindsay's--wife's 39th anniversary today!

Groundhog day, lol . . . we had no idea of the day when we quick, decided to "tie the knot"....ran down to the local constabulary, smartly dressed as able kids that we were, and then needed the lady security guard as the witness. . . . Low key . . . low down . . . BUT intent on the commitment and aware enough of the Godly injunction.  GET MARRIED, take the vow. . . .]

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Meanwhile, tonight, coming home from our little dinner out to celebrate . . . I found myself grabbing my little old book sitting in the curios desk on the counter inside the garage door, and, like you do sometimes, just opened it to a page and read. . . . 

This is what I read: "Happy the soul that is little in its own eyes, and is as content to be above them; that makes its merit and delight consist in being unknown, abject, and despised, and longs as ardently to become the reproach and the outcast of the world, as others do to be esteemed and honored by it.

Such a soul is after God's own heart; it is great in the eyes of His majesty, and by its humility renders itself worthy of His greatest graces. To arrive at this degree of perfection we must love an abject and hidden life, do nothing for the sake of esteem or praise, cheerfully receive contempt and adversity as our due; accept with humble submission, blame, contradiction, and calumny, and nourish ourselves with reproaches in imitation of Jesus Christ; esteeming it our greatest honor thus to resemble Him."  -[-T o' K... I.O.C]

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Boy, do I get that one!  I love it!  Birds of a feather . . . man after my own heart . . . soul after God's own heart!  Hidden.  Unknown.  Reproached.  Pathetic calumnies that (re perpetrators) elicit pity, sadness, fear for them (as recently emphasized "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy"--assuming one has some). . . .

The true LOW DOWN!  

How dare ANYONE imagine or dare to think they are going to have a better time of it than GOD HIMSELF WHO became the least, the lowest, suffered all for all!

So, yeah.  I never EVER feel marginalized, neglected, unfairly (not) rewarded or mis-treated, regardless.  NEVER!  Not when I know that GOD HIMSELF became flesh, endured all suffering for His beloveds' sake!  And all we have to do is have faith, believe, love and adore and strive for His Glory ABOVE ALL the temporary fits and starts and (infinitely comparative) minor sufferings in our own quick, scrappy run here in this mortal fallen realm. . . .

I'm all in!  YOU ARE TOO! 

We have the opportunity to experience--amidst the struggle and strife and violent survival here--His comfort and presence and joy and assurance . . . toward that very thing you crave, need, want and are destined to (I'm assuming you are if you are reading this:)!--that eternal joy, peace, satisfaction, unending fulfilment, expression, familial intimacy, LOVE . . . of and within and about and more . . . THE ONE TRUE GOD!

The dead shall bury the dead. . . .

The Living, never die.  (Well, once, sort of . . . but that's small potatoes! It's more like a doorway to JOY AND EVERLASTING PEACE AND LOVE, FAMILIALITY, INDIVIDUALITY, KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVITY WITHIN AND ALL ABOUT GOD THE GOOD CREATOR OF ALL!) 

The rest, the others . . . do indeed get the 2nd death.  That is not life eternal.  It is death eternal.

I fear for and pity them.  I pray to never have a part in that.  I trust GOD IS JUST, hence why we who love truth, also crave justice!  

The just and perfect Judge will take care of all that, all this.  Vengeance is His!  Judgment is His!  We need not be too concerned with slights and oppression, unfairness here.  It is to be expected.  

LOOK, READ, UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY DID TO HIM!  If we have any semblance of His experience (mitigated a "trillion-fold" as it is) we ought count ourselves most fortunate, blessed. . . . Graced, and Chosen!--fall down on face time, grateful!  

I can fully understand how scores of the good angels do nothing else but try to joyously shield their eyes, bowing down, praising and singing about His glory endlessly!)

Can't wait to see it!