ONCE UPON A TIME A GOOD GIRL LIVED

Jesus loved stories. His parables to the people were told to help them understand the way and ways of God, the way God works, thinks and acts. These things had been hidden from the people; the laws of Judism called them to responsibility without telling the people "why"? Jesus came to change things, and it all started with the parables.

In Matthew 13:34,35, a prophecy is repeated, first appearing in Psalm 78:2. It says, "I will open my mouth and tell stories; I will bring out into the open....things hidden since the world's first day." Asaph wrote the psalm, but the prophet referred to is very possibly Solomon.

What is it about a story? Does it make something easier to remember? This blog is supposed to be about my new life in Christ. Yet for the most part, I seem to share some new revelation God reveals that has made me sit up and notice. So, I end up preaching to the choir!

Let me try to tell a story.

I must have been born angry as I have fought anger all of my life. Something has to happen to stimulate anger, something that doesn't change that causes pain, hardship, or weakness. I was born during the depression in Chicago, IL near where my dad worked as a barber, who didn't own his own shop. Due to circumstances, we moved to a tiny town of about 110 people, called Union Center, WI. where my parents, with the help of my maternal grandfather, opened a small grocery store. My dad rode the train weekly to his job in Chicago and mother ran the store during the week. Maybe I was about a year or a bit more and rode a kiddie car tied with a long clothesline to a pole in the center of the store. You made it move with your feet, but my hands were busy in the various bins of beans, potatoes and such, so they moved all of the bins out of my reach.

It was a long day for a little tyke, especially since all the fun stuff was a no-no. I think my anger may have been lustily expressed often enough to teach me that getting angry gets attention. As I grew, I had a little sister, and she had curly hair like mine. Much too much like mine, I must have figured, so the glue pot on my mother's desk was by then easier to reach than those old bins had been, and Miss Shirley got her curls glued fast to her head. An expression of anger? You bet.

A bit older, I don't know to this day what inspired me to do so, but I did a terrible thing. I bit my brother, Bob, in the back. He was two years older than I, and a good little boy. All they were asking me to do was to say, "I'm sorry!" ........ The words never came and spankings did no good, whatsoever.

So growing up, I fought anger. All I wanted to be was a "good girl." Was it never to be?

When I found Jesus, I realize I had been looking for Him all of my life. Each view I had of Him kept Him farther away from me, because I had never seen myself as "good enough for Jesus love." But Jesus Himself said to a religious leader, according to Luke 18: 19, "Why do you call me good? Only God is truly good." Of course, Jesus is the Saviour of the World, and the true Son of God. And He is Good.

Therefore, now I see....my goodness is God within me, through His Holy Spirit. Only God could have made goodness in me. Thanks be to God!

Thus, a story called Once Upon A Time A Good Girl Lived.

So it is today. Christ within. And I am so very thankful that I can take my sin and selfishness to Jesus and repent. He lives in me and therefore, I Live!!

May my story come to fruition in your life. Most sincerely, Jo