Living a nomadic lifestyle, with only my husband for company most days, one could surmise that this girl doesn’t get out much! While my life seems boring and uneventful, it doesn’t mean there isn’t any fun going on!
The beautiful thing about writing is that it can go wherever I go, and often times, it roams the places I’m unable to physically transport my actual brain or body… and it’s my virtual FunVe!
I know the prompt wants five different things I do for fun, but what about five different ways of writing for fun?
Sometimes you may see things I’ve written that leave you feeling Whimsical…
Other times I share things that are Rough to accept, often poking fun at our own human behavior, hence, the cookies…
Many times I will write about things that Inspire others and/or myself…
There are times when I write things to share Truths, both mine and those of the world. One day you might read some truths that are good, some that are bad, as well as some that are ugly…
In everything that I write to and for you, my friends, I constantly strive to ensure that my words Edify the ones reading…
I don’t know about you, but I think this list of five should cover the prompt question, because it will have to do. I write because I love it and experience a great amount of fun while I’m doing it! To take words and organize them in differing ways, thereby allowing others to experience things like laughter, love, understanding and acceptance is a gift that I do not wish to waste!
Sometimes the writing is the only thing that gets me through tough times, when there is no light at the end of the tunnel to encourage me to move forward. I have seen it written many times, that the devil is in the details, but I say that the devil can choke on his own details, because God is definitely in my literary and virtual details… all of them!
Hopefully, this message has gotten back to the publishing desk at WTL News because, as you can see, I have stayed a bit longer than planned.
As I sat down to breakfast with my host and his wife, prepared to do my first interview, I was handed a message that had arrived just after dawn that morning. The one who initially sent me forth to meet with this man and his family, informed me that I’d actually not been sent there to write an article, but rather, to be taught some very important lessons. The letter instructed me to stay on awhile with Job and his family. Much of what Job had to teach would be experienced through time spent, rather than asking a bunch of questions. And I had a good list going so far, in the realm of poignant inquiries!
While there was no doubt of my willingness to follow my Benefactors instructions, logistically, I had not come equipped for this unplanned extension to the time spent with this family. In truth, I’d only brought one extra set of clothes, as I usually wrap up interviews within a day. Most of my assignments in the past had been completed in under 48 hours, so it was clear that I’d underestimated the plans of my Boss… oh well, I would have to make this work!
While Job’s wife was somewhat older than I am, she brought out a basket with some of her clothing, as we were similar in build. She generously offering me several lovely outfits made of the softest fibers, hoping to make my stay more comfortable. Though I’d arrived unprepared for an extended stay, apparently, Job and his wife had been notified ahead of my arrival, as to the purpose and length of my stay. Seems like everyone knew what the plan was… except for this journalist! How embarrassing! While I may have experienced a bit of shame in my game, this family took everything in stride and were quite happy for the opportunity to share their home with an employee of WTL News.
As soon as we finished breakfast, I went and changed into one of the outfits offered me, as it is currently quite warm in these parts and my normal clothes were stifling. Since my assignment had changed from journalist to student, I left my notebook and pen next to my bedside and headed out to spend the day with my host. If my Benefactor preferred sending me on an educational vacation, I was intent on getting the full experience package offered!
The first thing I should mention, is the fact that Job’s wife is a lovely woman, not at all like I thought based on how she seemed on the pages stored in the archives. I think that I may have misjudged her, not fully understanding why she reacted so strongly during his illness. I cannot imagine watching my loved one go through such horrendous suffering, while being incapable of doing anything to help. I suppose that no amount of knowledge about who God is and who we are as humans would make it easy to witness… and let’s not forget, those children that died were her sons and daughters, as well as Job’s. How horrible! Sitting with her at breakfast, one would scarcely think that she had gone through such tragedy, watching her laugh and talk with such a light heart.
The whole of the day turned out to be a massive rewrite of my opinions, not just of his wife, but of all the folks surrounding Job, as he endured all that had befallen him. Job took me to meet his close friends, who gathered at the nearby city gates frequently. I could see the open admiration and respect upon their faces, at our approach. As introductions were made all around, I was quite touched at the level of closeness still reflected between these long time friends. Watching them all talk back and forth, accompanied by frequent laughter and back patting, it was evident that these folks truly cared about each other. I found myself pondering why these kind and loving friends would speak the way they did to Job, while the man was down, so to speak? Thinking back, I found myself admitting that I too have spoken out harshly, in my past, with limited and skewed information. I can remember times, when I found out information about a situation, only after I’d already voiced my opinion. While I don’t feel like a villain, I surely felt ashamed about opening my mouth to voice my two cents, instead of just offering support and encouragement. Some lessons are more painful than others. One would never know, by the way these men laughed and chatted, that at one time there’d been such harsh and painful words spoken between them all!
As we headed out from our visit, Job took my on a more scenic path back towards his home, pointing out where some of his children lived, as well as other friends and families properties. You could see the happiness in his eyes, as Job spoke of all the beauty and blessings he saw all around him. Not once did the man make mention of his painful past, nor point out any of the myriad of scars he carried from his illness. Job seemed so busy living, laughing and loving the life God gave him… the man simply had no time to dwell on painful memories. It seemed as if the tragedy heaped upon him, only made Job MORE… more loving, more generous, more successful and more respectable.
Don’t misunderstand, he was still a nobody… but I found myself recognizing how much I could relate to this nobody! While I may not have a full understanding of what this man experienced during his ordeal, I did begin to see a familiar love and adoration for ones creator that also exists within my spirit. I considered this thought, along with a great many other emotions, as we walked back to his home at the end of the day. Dinner had been laid out for us when we arrived home, so we spent the rest of the evening relaxing around the hearth, eating and talking about things, the way one does with good friends. Laying in bed that night, I journaled my thoughts by candlelight, eventually drifting off to sleep.
I’m sitting on my bed right now, jotting down this message for you before the day gets started. It’s been nearly a week since my arrival and every day is somewhat the same, as far as breakfast, daily walks and meet and greets with family members, friends, and local village members. What is not the same, are the lessons learned every time I turn around, or with each new person I am introduced to. I’ve no idea why on earth I made the assumption, that by interviewing this man, Job, I would somehow uncover a hidden secret from the past that reflected differences between us now, and those of Jobs time in history. I couldn’t have been more misguided, as I am discovering that, in fact, time has changed… but the heart of humankind still remains the same.
Though I’m unsure as to whether or not I will be back in the office next week, I will send updates as often as I can. My Benefactor did not specify the length of my stay, only saying that I’d hear his call when it was time to return to the newsroom. In truth, I feel somewhat like I’m on an extended holiday! The food is amazing, the weather is glorious, and the company couldn’t be more wonderful! I do have a tendency to work too many hours at the office, often forgetting that I need some down time to avoid burning my literary brain out!
I pray you all are doing well, and trust that my Benefactor has your safety and health well in hand, during my extended absence… honestly, He’s been doing so all this time, as I really only do the writing of the stories… He’s the one making them!
On one hand, I could make a list of the things I would like to have happen this week… while on the other hand, I could choose to just keep writing!
Maybe this week will bring the fixes needed to restore water to our world, maybe not… just keep writing!
Maybe the telephone apt. with my doctor, on Wednesday, will bring a plan of action to becoming more pain free, without drugs, of course… just keep writing!
Perhaps I will finally get something clean to wear this week, or maybe not… just keep writing!
Maybe Glendar the Good Fairy will magically resupply my home with things necessary for basic existence, maybe not… just keep writing!
Can I just say that my life sucks a bag of rocks at the moment? Ok, good, now I feel a bit better… just keep writing!
Sometimes the writing is all that keeps me upright… so I will just keep writing! Brutus is coming along beautifully, by the way, so there’s that!
You know that old saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” I hate that saying, just so that you know!
Sometimes there is just simply not enough words to make it look pretty or LEMONAIDY enough, so if writing is the only thing to keep me upright and ready to walk by faith when called, so be it… I will write!
I will not stop writing until someone sees what needs to be seen, hears what needs to be heard, or is shown what needs to be revealed, getting them where they need to go… this is my calling!
I’ve understood from the beginning of this site’s creation, there would be times of difficulty… nothing truly worth doing is always easy! But, whatever the outcome of the writing, I fully believe that every single moment, whether joyful or painful, makes the journey all the sweeter… for this writer!
I suppose if we were able to make our pets understand us, we’d have results landing on both sides of the proverbial coin! In one way it would be great if we could help our pets understand why we do some of the things we do, while on the other hand it might backfire, leading to animal world domination!
I personally don’t think it would be the best idea for us to give our pets any more information about us, as I’m not so sure that it would cause them to love us more than they already do… in fact, it might give them cause to rise up and put us in cages, just because WE pooped on the floor.
With that being said, if I could make animals understand deeper about anything humans have done, are doing, or will be doing sometime in the future… it would be to tell them we’re sorry!
Last year I had to rehome my pug of 4 years, as well as my two cats that I found under a shed when they were tiny. I waited for 3 years to get my pug, loving her ever so much… she was my baby! My sister-in-law found a batch of kittens under her porch, keeping one and handing the other two my way… I hand raised both boys from about 10 days old and I adored them! I had to make the most painful decision, last year, of rehoming all of them due to our situation… it was awful!
I guess that if it were possible, I would want to try to explain my actions, and say how sorry I am!
I pray that my choice was for the animals betterment, but it is still difficult to hold the last memories of letting go. Sometimes, doing the right thing does NOT feel good, yet it is still right! I cannot say for sure what they were feeling throughout the painful process, but if I could communicate with them, this would obviously be the conversation on the forefront of our discussion. What would they say… would they forgive me if they understood… maybe.
The best information to give our pets, in the effort of better understanding about us hoomans, would be the knowledge that we often behave in ways that don’t align with our feelings. Often times, we do the right thing for the wrong reason, while at other times, we do the wrong things for the right reasons… it’s what we do!
It’s not all bad, and I didn’t say ALL people, nor did I say ALL the time… it’s just that sometimes the numbers are stacked against us, that’s all!
There’s no way to know if I’ll ever have flurbies journeying with me again… perhaps, perhaps not! Just as our pets probably don’t plan ahead most of the time, thinking to build contingency plans for difficult situations… I would want them to know that often times, we hoomans don’t either!
Issabella PugaliniGhost and Ash
Here, I need a cookie, so you better have one too…
While I have told you in the past, regarding my nickname, Wiwohka, I draw the line at my personal information being shared worldwide!
I tell my first name, along with anything meaningful that is attached to it… to my friends! If one of you that reads this, were to ask me what my real name is and how I got it… most likely, I would give you full disclosure, being considered one of my personal friends.
Beyond that, you get Wiwohka as my name! Also, Google is your friend so have a nice time looking up the definition and origin all by your onesies!
If anyone is reading this prompt answer, you should hopefully have figured out by now that I don’t answer these questions for any form of Like, Share, or Repost… in honesty, you have better things to be doing in your lives, than hanging by every word this grumpy lady says. With that being said, I will say that I am committed to answering each daily prompt with a sincere heart… no flippant, smart mouthed answer that is based off of feelings alone. My goal is to think outside the box when answering, choosing to improve my writing skills… and if I’m lucky, I might make a new friend here or there to share some life, love, and happiness with inside the Journey With Me Lobby!
I leave it to you the reader, not WordPress Prompt questions, to see the ME that I am! The daily Prompt is not my friend, but those of you that visit ARE… if you ask it, I would tell you…
I confess that in the past, as I read through the story of Moses and the Israelites, I’d not ever really considered the logistics of moving such a large group of humans. Maybe it’s wisdom, grown from my years of existence, that enables me to now ponder these things… or it could be that I live a life of hardship that brings such things to light. We still have no water, in case you’re at all wondering, as to my current state of mind.
While I was reading through chapter after chapter of the instructions God gave Moses, for the building of the Tabernacle and the Tent of Meeting, it hit me… wait a minute, are you saying that they had to build this and then carry it around the desert for 40 years? This girls says… RESPECT!!! I’m crying about my lack of running water… boo hoo!
I think Mt. Sanai was like a sort of staging area, preparing the people for the journey that lie ahead. Had God simply drug these people through the desert, many would have either wandered off, or worse, perished! Once a head count of all the men over 20 years of age was taken, the bible says, in Exodus 38:26, there were 603,550 Israelites males, plus their wives and children. Now add in all of their livestock and personal belongings.
If you know anything about camping or traveling, you know that there is an enormous difference between traveling with a blanket and snack bag… and camping with your family, ice chests, tents, firewood, clothes, blankets, bedding, coffee, first-aid kits, fishing poles, bait box, Capri Suns, Smores ingredients, roasting sticks, drinking water, bathing water, wet wipes… etc. You get the picture!
In the past readings of Exodus, I will admit that I perused all these chapters, as there were a lot of measurements being issued… and I hate math! This time, however, I read through this section multiple times, just to grasp the enormity of the task that lay before the Israelites… to build a fully mobile Temple of God! I think the Israelite people constructed and built the Tabernacle from all that material the Egyptians gave them, as they departed. There was so much material available, brought forward by the people, Moses had to instruct them to please give NO MORE!
My mind was blown at the thought of how much stuff everyone was bringing along with them. Once I got over the initial mind blownery, I began to search within the verses for an accurate timeline of things getting done, or progressing, if you will. I began to understand, logically, why it took 40 years to get a million plus humans, to travel what would take most small families, just shy of two weeks to accomplish. No amount of wet wipes would be helping to speed this trip up!
I know we all have either heard of, or have seen the movie Mortal Engines. In the movie, they made it seem so easy to just live a normal life, inside a larger machine that moves all your stuff from one location to the other… they didn’t even have to pack the house up when the city decided to move.
The Israelites didn’t have any engines, nor was it so easy to live or travel with each other for 40 years. Healers would be found somewhere inside the masses, if you or a family member was ill, but I’m not sure who traveled to who, to receive medical care. The people had to carry ALL of their cooking supplies, along with the food for their livestock. If a woman went into labor, she had to do it on the road. If your family member passed away, you either wrapped and carried the body, or had to bury them somewhere along the way. There were no grocery stores or gas stations to let the kids out to stretch their legs… nope… just an attitude of suck it up, pack it up, and let’s do this!
For the first time, in my studying of this part of the bible, I find myself pondering the perspective of more than just Moses. It’s always easier to point out insights from a place of comfort. Maybe the discomfort of my personal circumstances is working for me here… in a ridiculously modern viewpoint, I can somewhat feel their pain, regarding how things went down there! I’m a firm believer in God using everything in our lives to better us, as His children! You’ve heard me say it before, regarding the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly… God did, does and will use it for our good… all of it! I can say this because I’m living it! I’m fairly confident that some of you reading this, also are living it!
My take away from this bit… God had the people build and bring the Tabernacle with them, because He traveled with the people… he led them, every single day of those 40 years. We now live in the New Testament of times, where God is doing the same thing for us, but it is internal, rather than external. There is a great amount of restructuring that has to go on in the heart of a believer, as they choose to follow God. Some changes occur early on in our walk, while others may take 40 years to get there… before Christ lived and died for us, we had to follow the Tabernacle to stay near God. The road was paved by our creator so that the Tabernacle now lies within our being… it’s right there!
I’m nothing more than a child of God, just like you are, sharing my thoughts with you like a brother or sister… I’m not a teacher, nor a theologian. I mentioned once before that I think of all of you as my Study Buddies. We look together into Biblical History Records, for lack of a better description, trying to find a better understanding of who we are in Christ. I can only share with you from my own circumstances and perspective, while you read from within your own situations in life. I love that diversity, as it keeps me from thinking I’ve got it all figured out… because I don’t!
I’m trying to keep a Godly attitude, while I flush my toilet with a bottle of water, wear the same pair of pajamas for over a week, and eat out of the microwave off of a paper plate with my fingers, as there is no clean anything in here… including silverware! My perspective and attitude can rapidly devolve into fight or flight mode, so staying in the word right now is of the utmost importance! The upside to things is the knowledge that we’ve been here before… and I didn’t die… so God’s Got This! If He faithfully carried a massive group of peoples through the desert for 40 years, why would I think He would let our RV’s lack of water supply end things now!
Generations have passed between the time of the Israelites and current civilization, but the heart of mankind is still the same today as it was back then… human! That is something I think we can all relate to, don’t you ?
While I cannot say what age I was, when I first watched the movie “Doctor Dolittle”, I know that I knew all the way back then that I wanted to be like him!
I wanted to be able to talk to animals, as well as helping them in any way I could. This movie fueled my dreams and imagination with adventures that took me to places unreachable to most. Though the actors were only pretending, and most of the scenes were fantastical, the underlying lessons I took from this movie have stuck with me to this day!
Learning to understand any and all of Gods creatures, was a big part of the Doctors efforts in helping them… how else could he figure out what was wrong and then come up with a solution? He wasn’t magic… in fact, most of the important animals he helped, were helped by the doctor simply stealing them and releasing them into the wild! In my opinion, the whole point of Doctor Dolittle, was that he took the time to listen and learn from nature, and the animals themselves. I remember thinking that the biggest problems for the animals, usually came in the form of ignorant human interference… a world only thinking of their own interests.
All these years later, I’m finding it hard to change my answer here, leaving me to wish for more Doctor Dolittle type attitudes, here in todays current environmental and wildlife issues. Don’t get me wrong, as there are many very valuable organizations out there, dedicating everything to striking a balance between man and nature.
If I could have a dream job, I would desire to be just like Mr. Dolittle, helping to make a difference in the animal kingdom. God placed the animals under our care, sometimes to intercede on their behalf… and sometimes to just remove ourselves, as often times, we are the very cause of natures problem!
Don’t get your panties in a bunch, as they say, because this is just the literary pondering of a whimsical child in the body of a grown woman. It always looks easier on paper…
Have you ever looked at your life and/or circumstance, feeling like nothing more than a construction worker? Maybe you feel as if you’re always looking for that misplaced impact driver that you realize you’ve forgotten somewhere on the worksite. While I don’t know about you guys for sure, I know that I am feeling it right now!
Current circumstances have left me feeling as if I’m in a major work zone right now, for lack of a better description! As the picture above should convey, it’s a pretty big site… and I’ve somehow got to find several of the midlevel floor blueprints that are nowhere to be found, right now! Fortunately, I am not the foreman, nor do I own the building being erected… rather, I am the onsite Administrative Assistant.
My primary job is to assist in the organization and implementation of the build, not being expected to do any of the heavy lifting… though sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes, I feel as if I have been working all by myself on a holiday weekend, with everyone else gone home to be with their families. I didn’t say they did, I simply said that at times it feels that way!
What does any of this have to do with my Saturday Note to Self blurb? Everything! Times like the ones I’m walking through right now, are exactly the times when I need something positive and hopeful to hang onto! When I first collected all of the chosen quotes and/or verses, I did not know why… many times we must walk by faith without knowing any of the WHY’s.
Thankfully, I assist the most qualified Foreman, working for a pretty amazing Property Owner! He gives me the blueprints and I simply follow along… even if I don’t have a full understanding of the build going on, in and around the job site.
All I am able to say for today’s Note To Self #22, is that I needed it more than words can express!
“‘For I know the plans I have for you’, declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'” Jeremiah 29:11
Plans have already been laid out for my journey…
My Foreman only allows the demolition or restructuring of that which will build with a lasting and solid foundation…
Journey With Me! 