Author: bonniejeancarr

The only life I’ve ever known or lived has revolved around my heritage, both my Italian and Divine. Recently, I’ve been newly awakened to, and appreciative of, this blessing. I possess what is the rarest of treasures. This richness was not gifted me from the outside but rather seeded inside me. The first seed was sown by my Dad, at least weekly, bringing me to visit my grandparents, Nani and Nana. Out of love, not obligation, my Dad showed (over told) me the unmeasurable wealth of possessing “Family”.

As the years passed, the blessings of having, holding on to and handing down “Family” to future generations was not only stamped forever on my heart but, also, eternally engraved in my soul. For you see, my Dad not only gifted me the fortune of my earthly “Family”, he insured that I, also, inherited the eternal treasure of being a grateful and honored member of the “Family” of God. My Dad’s car, with me inside, not only weekly drove the path to Nani’s and Nana’s front door, it also carried my Dad and me to the entrance of my Father God’s “Family” home – Church.

My Dad was a devoted son to Nani, Nana and God. I witnessed my Dad’s love of his “Family” as his top priority and most valued accomplishment, possession and legacy. No greater heritage is there than belonging to my “Family” on earth while also be longing for my “Family” membership in Heaven.

Let the world, and worldly, boast about material ownership. I choose instead to reap the “Family” harvest my Dad seeded in my heart and soul.

Driving away from Moffitt Cancer Center, my mind knew it would not return. My heart and soul knew it never would leave. It had been one of the most difficult weeks of my life. Tears engulfed me, not because of forthcoming death but because of the present of lives. My sobs were not of despair but born of witnessing mankind as God created His children to be – even in the face of impending death.

My brother, his son and I arrived at Moffitt late Thanksgiving night. My brother was admitted. His son and I were committed to staying both the course and the nights by my brother’s side. What I had not anticipated was that as the page of Thanksgiving was turned, Dollar Store bells would ring in the most powerful Christmas gift – love.

The rooms, floor, halls and elevators of a cancer center are overflowing with beautiful people suffering an ugly disease. Every race, religion, and socio-economic level, side by side, are pummeled by an enemy that weapons, too often, cannot eradicate.

My heart was heavy and my soul weary the morning after Thanksgiving as I rode the elevator all the way down to rock bottom and the hospital cafeteria. As I trudged toward fueling my body, Dollar Store bells rang out. Entering the pit stop for bodies hungering for more than a meal, my soul found nourishment whipped up in God’s personal kitchen and served by God’s personal angels.

The check out ladies were adorned in Dollar Store bells. Their wrists, necks and headbands, embellished in the sound of Christmas, brought smiles to faces weighed down by fear and sorrow.

Who were these women whose hearts were reaching out to downtrodden souls? Judged by the world they are not rock star performers, upper echelon society or reigning leaders. Weighed against God’s Word, they are Our Heavenly Father’s servants who personify “…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.”. Matthew 25:40 (NIV)

As I approached one of the Dollar Store belled servers, tears streamed down my cheeks. I expressed that she truly fed more than cancer families’ stomachs. She fed their hearts and souls. Hugging this very special child of God, she squeezed me back and whispered, “We may not be able to spread Christmas joy, but we can give all Christmas LOVE.

Days later, as the cancer center was escaping my rear-view mirror, tears again were streaming down my face. Though my heart was deeply missing Moffitt’s Dollar Store belled ladies, my soul would forever hold them close. Cancer is horrendous, but in its midst, God had blessed me with Dollar Store bells that all the money in the world can’t buy.

Often, I have interchanged the Hands of God and the Arms of God; but are they really the same. In yesterdays, my mind would have argued yes, both are the same. Not today. My heart and soul now witness and fathom they are not carbon copies, conceived (and meant to be perceived) as mirrored duplicates.

The Hands of God are actively creating, changing and carrying out missions, mercies and miracles. The Arms of God embrace and holdfast, when human lives cannot be rescued and released from injustice, suffering and earthly death.

God’s Hands did not change the worldly wrong of Christ being crucified. God’s Arms did steadfastly embrace our Savior as He endured the agony of death, so eternal life for us could be achieved and received.

We exist in a world where God’s Hands, at times, perform works of supernatural healing. However, in all moments of inexplicable suffering, though His Hands seem frozen in inactivity, God’s Arms are hugging His pain ridden children with Supreme love, comfort and mercy.

When our human eyes do not see God’s Hands at work, may our hearts and souls believe and trust God’s Arms are holding us close, comforting us and enduring our pain and anguish with us.
May we forever cling to the shortest verse in God’s Word, when we most need to feel God’s Arms embracing us and carrying us and our emotions, fears and tribulations. “JESUS WEPT.” John 11:35 (ESV).
As we go through our most grievous suffering and God wipes away our tears, let us always remember those tears not only fall from our eyes but also from Christ’s. God is with us. He deeply cares. God’s Hands may not be at work, but His arms are holding us and will never let go.

Emotion was high. Once more, my brother, sister-in-love and I were sheltered in Tampa’s Embassy Suites (6th floor this time) as my brother sought weekly treatment for aggressive blood cancer. Nicholas had early morning testing, followed by a scheduled blood transfusion. Suzanne knew he needed to eat. She asked if I would please fetch him at least the one item he normally agreed to try — a blueberry muffin. After a long night of praying God would keep carrying my brother and send me a sign to guide the way, I was grateful to escape the room’s somber atmosphere and fetch possible enticement for my loss-of-appetite brother. Little did I anticipate God was about to open more than a door to breakfast. The door to “soul” food was about to take flight.

After unlatching the numerous locks with which hotel, stronghold doors are equipped, I swung open the fortress. Startled, shocked and stunned in disbelief, my stroll stopped, and my speech shrieked, “It was bigger than my palm?”. My sister-in-love, now concerned we were being attacked, blurted out “a cockroach?’. “No”, I retorted. “Then what?”, she interrogated. All I could bounce back was “it flew directly at me, made an arc across my heart then soared straight up and disappeared.”. Suzanne deduced and declared, “a bat!”. She slammed shut the door and contemplated our escape.
“No” not a bat”, I assured her; but her logic calculated there was no other explanation. Anyone who knows me knows “illogical” best describes my life. This instance at hand further affirmed this conclusion.

As Suzanne stood stalwart at the hotel’s registration counter trying to alert management that their iron clad fortress’s sixth floor was breeched by a “bat”, I retreated inward. I heard God asking, “what did you see?”. Once more, the first thing out of my mouth was “it was bigger than the palm of my hand.”. God continued, “And…?”. I uttered, “Its wings were like a butterfly’s.”. “Go on,” God urged. Closing my eyes, I pictured what, just minutes ago, flew toward me. I added, “Its color was sandy. A glitter gold thread was woven throughout. The wings were transparent with filagree patterned from end to end. A light streamed from its wings as it passed before me. The wings never flapped. They just soared.”. Finally, God inquired, “What, my daughter, did you witness?”. Confidently, I answered “to the world, maybe, a mutant moth; to me, definitely the Holy Spirit.”. Leaving the Embassy Suites Hotel that morning, my sister-in-love’s and the hotel staff’s minds were in worldly frenzy. My soul was settled in God’s deep peace.

Eight days later my brother, sister-in-love and I were back in Tampa. That very morning, as my car carried my body to Tampa, my soul prayed for God to befriend my brother with one of His cancer warriors, who could bring inspiration and renewed fortitude to my brother’s heart, soul and journey. This sister, though her closet be filled with footwear, was incapable of filling all shoes. My brother’s need was a footprint that had walked the steps of his current uphill trek.

Debilitated, downtrodden and disillusioned, my brother slumped in the chair into which his frail structure had collapsed. Gazing at his worn and torn body, fear entered my being. Medicine could transfuse my brother’s body, but not his heart and soul. I cried, “God, my brother needs YOU.”.

At that very moment, a stranger appeared in front of us. He introduced himself as Curtis. Continuing on, he shared that though it might seem strange, he felt compelled to approach my brother. His pancreatic cancer battle had been startling, even to what the doctors were accustomed. Curtis now felt God calling him to begin a ministry befriending and walking beside others as they fall prey to cancer and pray to God’s healing heart and hands. My Father in Heaven answered my morning prayer!

Since these two God-incidences, the nightmare of my brother’s cancer has not become a different story. However, one Almighty and Powerful force in this saga, GOD, has regained center stage spotlight.

The Moth — “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)

The Man — “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 (ESV)

God trusts us to listen and carry out His purpose through the individual talents He created and seeded within each of us. Vice versa, we trust God as we endeavor to carry out His call on each of our lives. However, do we ENTRUST the outcome to God, or do we fall prey (instead of pray) to trusting ourselves to accomplish everything through our wisdom, our power, our action and our effort.

If God trusts us enough to assign us a purpose, aren’t we supposed to confidently see our hands carrying the assignment through to completion? Absolutely, not!!! We are to see God’s Hands, not ours, as the means of accomplishment. Our hands are merely puppets on a string, being steered and controlled by the puppeteer — the Hands of God. Too often, we humans take pride in God trusting us with His work. Instead, we need to ENTRUST God to achieve His work by maneuvering us in a way that results in His mission being attained.

There is an additional insight into trust and ENTRUST which we would be wise to ponder. We trust God to solve our problems, but do we ENTRUST God with our problems. To trust, often, centers on trusting for a positive desired ending. To ENTRUST God with our problems is to rest in His peace, no matter what the end result is to be. If all a child of God knows and practices is trust, then when their faith is worldly shaken, it is possible for them to turn and walk away from God. If God’s child understands and lives by ENTRUST, then when their faith is worldly shaken, they rest in knowing God will never walk away from them.

Mine is the prayer that you, me and all God’s children stand not only on trust but also kneel firmly on the rock-solid foundation of ENTRUST.

Lately, I’ve found myself not only coming and going but, also, bumping into myself in the middle of coming and going. I doubt I’m alone on this collision course. Children of God, everywhere, are on this same burdensome treadmill. Wait a minute!! Instinctively, I penned burdensome. Does not Scripture guide me otherwise?

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV).

My soul having been refreshed by these verses, my mind entered conversation with God. This daughter of His, needing revelation and re-routing, God minced no words in delivering His aha moment. Both a light bulb and enlightenment went on when God filled my being with His fundamental inquiries.

Am I running ragged doing God’s work for me or my work for God? Do I even know and understand the difference? Let me declare, since I needed to even be asked these questions, I obviously was not scoring a 100% on my answer sheet.

What God was wisely helping me comprehend is His work for me will never exhaust my heart and soul. However, my self-proclaimed work for God, most often, will exhaust my body. What’s more, my self-decided work for God is not even what God is calling me to, needs me for, or even wishes me to do. Plain and simple, this child of God (and probably all children of God) needs to let God create and assign His list (not my list) designating the work I’m called to do for Him (not the work I’ve personally chosen to do for Him).

Choosing to do God’s work for me over my work for God does not translate into never being pushed beyond my physical strength or an eight-hour workday. What it does promise is that God’s strength will carry me, sustain me and refresh me when I endeavor to answer the call of His work for me. My work for God carries no such guarantee. If God calls me to it, He will carry me through it. If I call myself to it, my own efforts often fail to get me through it.

Not possessing divine knowledge, how best can we decipher God’s work for us from our work for God? Prayer and accepting and adhering to its answering guidance best solve this question.

Our human plate gets overloaded when the “work meal” handed us by God is supplemented by servings of our own added “work desserts” that we surmise God surely wants and needs but just forgot to put on our plate. We all need to ask ourselves if we are starving to stuff ourselves with our work for God, or are we well nourished by the food of God’s work for us? The former will wear us down into a grave. The later will lift us up to the heavens. The “starving to stuff” or “well nourished” choice is each of ours to make.

Last week, after a month of framing a storybook to thank a very special woman of God, the gift was presented to her. Honestly, I felt relief that the mission was accomplished, and a sole heart was applauded for the work of her soul. God’s inspiration and influence was felt every stroke of depicting her storybook. Throughout the writing process, there was no detail too insignificant not to be under the eye of proof-reading scrutiny.

Post presentation, the draft copy was being filed away when my thought was to enjoy one last read. I didn’t get beyond page one when my stomach dropped in dismay. There was a blatant name “autocorrect” mistake I had not caught. Imposible, I thought; but there it was glaring at me. My reflex reaction was “God, how can this be? YOU were the composer/writer. I was merely the pencil pusher.” God’s response not only spoke His wisdom but, also, led me to His overlooked message that my pencil holding fingers had failed to grasp but now longed to be included.

In honoring God’s special lady, I pictured only what reflected the Divine. God’s message to be inserted was the grace to re-define. Those who walk most close to God rest in the understanding that God does not expect (nor intend for) them to be 100% perfect. At the start of many of the greatest stories of life, a mistake is often present, but by its end all can be corrected. God’s greatest of creations grasp that He does not expect nor measure them by being every moment perfect. Exceptionally giving and gifted does not mean without mistake. Those, who best walk in God’s image, understand their footprints do not (and cannot) fill His shoes. With grace and mercy, God loves and values them both in their weaknesses and their strengths. God’s tallest standing children lean into the security of realizing mistakes are part of all lives; but as the pages of lives are turned, flaws can disappear. The page of a life’s story that best defines a special child of God is not the first sheet but the last leaf.

Having absorbed God’s lesson, one declaration repeated in my heart. “As the pages of lives are turned, flaws can disappear.” Could it be, I wondered? The “autocorrect” misspelling on page one of the storybook impacted my heart as a major downfall. This same word appeared once more on the last page of the narrative. Was it possible the final prose would correct the “auto” misdirection? Would God so boldly write this story? Amazingly, God did just that. Upon the final page, the worldly mistake was divinely corrected and restored.

Indeed, our Heavenly Father’s hand had written an epilogue to the storybook honoring this very special woman of God. It reads: “Though there are times when you suffer worldly failure, your success is knowing the beginning from the end. You diagnose the disease of imperfections not as a final misspelled word but rather as a first humanly flawed page in a chapter story of life on earth. Yours is the heavenly understanding that by the last page all mistakes are able to be washed away through your caring heart, your humble soul and the cure of God’s forgiveness, grace and mercy.”.

May this epilogue be one God might also pen for each of us.

One need only glance inches, not miles, to see fellow children of God under attack. Diseases, fractured families, broken dreams, etc., etc., etc. surround our lives. My hunch is you, like me, out of loving hope encourage God’s hurting children to “HANG IN THERE” and keep faith burning in their hearts and souls.

God corrected me and challenged me to see the error of my words. I share the following not as a put down of my (or your) good intentions gone astray but as a reminding re-commitment to what God calls us to impart to His hurting children. Plain and simple, God’s children, no matter what trial or tribulation they are enduring, are not supposed to HANG IN THERE. Christ did all the HANGING that was, is or ever will be needed for any, and all, of us to be freed from our trials and tribulations. We are not to HANG IN THERE but to REST in the accomplishment, truth and promises of Christ HANGING IN THERE.

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:38 (NIV). We are called not to HANG IN THERE but to REST in our Lord. HANG IN THERE implies clinging to a thread while the garment of our belief and hope is being frayed in a fierce storm. REST proclaims we are sheltered by our God in even the most savage of worldly furors.

I don’t think God calls us to wash away the word HANG from our mouths and memory. Quite the opposite, He calls us to share the reality of HANG IN THERE in a different and completely accurate connotation. We are to recall for others, who are facing the hardest of battles, that the trial of Christ and the unrighteous verdict rendered Him the one to HANG IN THERE so we could be proclaimed righteous and granted the security of being able to REST in God’s protection when worldly tribulations engulf us.

Christ conquered HANGING. We are to grasp REST. Next time we offer words of heavenly Hope to one going through worldly hell may they be ones not from our mortal mouths but from God’s eternal love, protection and promises. “The Lord replied, My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Exodus 33:14 (NIV)

Lately, I have found myself lamenting what God sees as He gazes upon our fallen world. How disappointing and upsetting it must be for our Heavenly Father to see mankind plummeting farther and farther away from His way and will. What an ugly picture for His eyes to behold. Truthfully, my sight has been locked on this vision. That is until yesterday when God showed me His more insightful perspective.

God is multifocal. When looking at mankind, He is not tunnel visioned on the evil illuminated in many and much of planet earth. Yes, He is fully aware of how far society has strayed from His laws and love; but He also sees all that His children do which is good and reflective of His character and care. Our hateful and sinning nation is not overlooked by God, but neither are the acts of faith, hope, love and outreach that are depicted in the lives of those who follow God’s commands and commission.

Our God is a God of judgement but also a God of reward. He views in mankind both who will be judged and who will be rewarded. It is extremely shortsighted of me to limit God’s eyesight to only staring at what is evil. The apples of His eye, His children living for Him and in Him, are never blurred by pictures of evil.

My eyes, now being opened to this, have new illumination. Like God, the wrong doing glaring forth in this world will not blind me from seeing all the God seeded goodness happening in my midst. I no longer give way to discouragement from seeing who and what are fallen but uplifted by viewing who and what have risen up, defy the worldly trend and reflect the grace, mercy, compassion and love of God.

God never overlooks His future saints because of present sinners. May this be a guiding light of hope and inspiration which helps us all secure our sight beyond the darkness of the moment.

If my Hubby was not tending the gardens of Heaven, today would mark his 70th birthday. As I meander through the day, my heart re-listens to some of his comical, but never forgotten, wisdom. One of my favorites was his understanding that all careers/ jobs, be they successes or failures, are best measured by the scale of the significance of their outcome. I still hear his voice proclaiming “if a pizza maker ruins the dough, he can discard it and start over. No significant loss occurs. However, a surgeon is not allowed the solution of tossing the failure and freshly starting over”. For the pizza maker, opportunity and results are a luxury that can always be granted a do over. For the physician, outcomes do not get a replay but rather stand alone as only one chance to help render the miracle of God’s healing.

By now, I’m pretty sure you must be wondering where on earth am I going with this! Actually, I’m not going anywhere on earth. I am navigating a route from, and to, heaven for Christ’s disciples. When we, as Christ’s ambassadors, take up the role of representing God, defending Christianity and delivering spiritual food and health to others, are we pizza makers or members of the surgeon’s team? Honestly, I’m seeing a lot more dough thrown into a trash can than souls saved through M.D.’s (“M”essiah’s “D”isciples) hooking those in need to Heaven’s Healing Surgeon’s lifeline.

The question is when given the opportunity to touch another’s life for God, do we see ourselves as pizza makers or M.D.’s — “M”essiah’s “D”isciples? Who we see ourselves as, in truth, reflects not our profile but God’s image.

We live in a world where the vast majority are not seeking responsibility for their own needs, let alone the needs of others. None the less, God calls us to make a difference by being different than the world. We are charged to serve God, care for others and help change the earth from selfish to selfless; and all is to be done with God, in God and for God.

Satan loves for us to approach this calling with pizza dough in hand. On the contrary, God puts our hand in His and solely asks us to bring lost souls to Him, the powerful Physician who will cure all addictions, heal all afflictions and lovingly feed all His hungry flock Christ’s lifesaving bread and wine.

We are not commissioned to think of leading others to their Divine Maker as our being a maker of pizzas. No soul can, or should, ever be thrown away and another reached for. Our job is to value and lead all who are lost to Heaven’s Surgeon, who alone can save each and every soul in need of eternal life.

Thanks, Hubby, for using your sense of humor to remind me of my responsibility in the employment of helping lead lost souls to God’s redemption. Happy Birthday; you are loved and missed.

“So, we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God’!” (2 Corinthians 5:20) NLT