"Great is Thy Faithfulness, Oh God my Father"

Great is Thy Faithfulness, Oh God My Father…There is no shadow of turning with Thee, Thou changest not, Thy compassion it fails not…as Thou hast been, thou forever will be…

Great is Thy Faithfulness, Great is Thy Faithfulness, Morning by Morning, new mercies I see…All I have needed, Thy Hand hath provided, Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord unto me…

One day, when I was 14, I got very angry with my mother, and rather than mouth off, which would only get me into more trouble, (I knew this from experience) I headed out the door for my very first run.  I remember the feeling of pounding my anger out on the pavement, the struggling for breath and then eventual peace that came, as my breathing became rhythmic and my strides began steady.  And as I ran, I worked through the verbiage that would never reach her ears; since that day, I have been a runner, a jogger really, but runner sound so much better.

I am inconsistent at times, faithful and dedicated at others.  Even after the longest stretches of literal winters and metaphoric winter seasons when my running shoes sit unlaced and unused by the back door, eventually I tie them up once again and hit the asphalt to work out the feelings and words that cannot be articulated.

I have written books while I run…wish I had a tape recorded, organized presentations, oh where was the whiteboard, composed letters, rehearsed difficult conversations, and envisioned ideas, but they remain forever lost on the pavement…remnants of moments in time that return only in glimpses and snippets when I sit in front of my laptop trying to recapture them.  More than anything else, when I run, I think and I pray… the rhythmic nature of my breathing centers me, calming my soul and stilling my mind that I might commune with g-d…and haggle and hash out and dream and envision and reason together…

On that day of my very first run, so many years ago, my dad told me an interesting story… “you are not supposed to be able to run…”  were his first words when I told him about the exhilarating way I had found to keep from mouthing off to my mom!  My puzzled look must have prompted him to expand on the following story…

“Susie,” he gently said “as a baby, from about 1 to 3 years old, you had life threatening asthma…you were allergic to everything...and often at night, I would wake up and hear you gasping for breath, sometimes you would even stop breathing for a moment and I would get you to breath again. Then I would take you to the hospital for breathing treatments…”  and as he told me this, his eyes got that far away look of remembering and he paused, as if he was reliving those moments a bit.  Then my dad, looked down at me smiled at me, pulled me close and hugged me, “you gave us many scares,” and that was all he said.

“What happened?” I asked, because I was 14 at the time and had not lived with asthma as a child. 

“When you were 3 years old, you were healed. It was a miracle”  This was a remarkable statement for my dad, the scientist!  “and we moved across the country, at the same time.”   He paused and mused at my inquisitive and disbelieving look; then he continued. “We were headed to California, and we had all your medicines and the name of a specialist there. Before we left, you were anointed with oil and prayed over by the elders of our church, a prayer of healing… and you never had another attack, but the doctors said you would never have the lung capacity to run, or be challenged athletically…”

Now I am smart enough to know that a cross country move can change the allergic reactions in a person, but I am also wise enough to believe in the power of healing prayer.  I never had any trouble with allergies, not even seasonal hay fever until my mid twenties, when they were triggered by an allergic reaction to medication.  However, being told I wasn’t supposed to be able to run, or be athletic, made me sign up for track that year and I have been determined to run and be athletic ever since…

However, each time I am out for a run, I end  my run with the hymn great is thy faithfulness running through my mind… I have been doing that for the past 28 years…because I am not supposed to be able to run… and it is because of g-d’s faithfulness and goodness that I can…

This morning, my run was hard.  I was tired and it was tough to even drag myself out of bed to go for my run.  The reality of my life and schedule right now, is that if it doesn’t happen first thing in the morning, it doesn’t happen.  As the words to Great is Thy Faithfulness ran through my head, i wondered about singing that hymn with gender neutral or inclusive language.  I am not sure that I would enjoy it as much, after all these years.  It holds a powerful imagery for me.  But, I am passionate about re-discovering and revealing the feminine face of g-d and using more inclusive language for a myriad of reason. I am also aware that for some people the imagery of a g-d as father is not one of safety or goodness.  These issue must be addressed.

As I think about the feminine face of g-d and wander into discovering and revealing it more fully, I am not saying that we should do away with the masculine face of g-d.  I am suggesting a third alternative… and that is that they coexist, in our imagery, vocabulary and worship as they do in scripture.  I could not sing the words to the hymn "great is thy faithfulness, o god my father," any other way… that is the hymn as it has run through my head for years… and I don’t want to undo it, I just don’t want to be limited to that being the only image for g-d, any more than I want my children to think that a parent is only a father!  There is room for many images of the Mystery that is G-d.  I am advocating that we discover many of the images and names that have been buried and hidden for years…as well as keep the familiar ones that speak to us and reveal to us the goodness of the Incomprehensible Eternal One.   SeLaH

Comments

[stephanie]

What I love most in this post is "I don't want to limit it". If we had to remove all gender from God I believe we will limit it in the sense that male and female has defining qualities for us, characteristics, nuances and by allowing both, (because I believe God is both in character not physical) we can find defining moments in our relationship with the Almighty. Simply allowing questioning, wrestling and search in itself is a removing of limits and opening the heart to finding Truth. And Truth does want to be found doesn't it?

[Melanie Stefien]

In the Spring of 2006 God sent a message. It is about the meaning of First is Last and Last is First. The message is this:
In the morning I go to Heaven. In the afternoon I live my life. In the evening I die death.
What does this mean? It means that Birth is Last and Birth is First. God also gives an example so that you can understand this better. Example: Mike Douglas died on his birthday, August 11. (note: Mike Douglas and Michael Douglas are two different people.)

[Melanie Stefien]

In 2007 God had this to say:
We each die in succession, then we are born on the same day.

[Melanie Stefien]

God sees everything, doesn't he?

This is one small piece of proof that God talked to me:

Like I said earlier, the Holy Spirit talked to me, besides his message about First is Last and Last is First, he had something to say about “Who Killed JFK”. Christ tells me that the man who shot JFK is a policeman. He also tells me the name of the shooter, but it is in a jumbled word. The word is “Fritters”. I see the name F. Ritter right off so I think that is the name of the killer. Now God has lots of other messages for me to figure out, so I put “who Killed JFK” on the back burner for over a year. A year or more later , just recently, I have more time to look for F. Ritter. I can’t find a policeman with that name who lived in Dallas, Texas in 1963. So I am searching for information about who killed JFK and there is a picture of a policeman by the name of J D Tippit. Now Tippit kind of looks like Ritter. Now I unjumble the letters of Ritter to get TIRRET. Now TIRRET looks more like TIPPIT. Now I make the R’s stand at attention, I get TIPPET. One problem is that the I and the E are not the same. So I do some research on the family name TIPPIT. Turns out that in the late 1800’s JD Tippit’s grandfather changed their name from Tippett to Tippit. So the next step I change the E to I. So Tippet is now Tippit.
Now I have FS Tippit and JD Tippit. The first two initials are not the same. Next I go to Wikipedia, there I find; "Some thought that J D stood for "Jefferson Davis" however JD does not stand for anything". That means his name is just J D. So the initials F S , do not stand for anything. I just have two initials that do not stand for anything. Are you following me?

Next what does "FRITTERS" mean. If your following my thinking here, God is going to tell you what happened to JD Tippit after he was shot. Fritters is a dough that is deep fried. Bread also means body, like in the last super Christ takes the bread and says this is my body. Look in the dictionary, PIT means HELL. TIP means money paid, gratuity. There are other meanings to. These meanings tell a story.

JD Tippits body (dough) is placed in the deep fryer (lake of fire). Now I think this clue (Fritters) was ingenius. After all God came up with it. I think he does have a sense of humor too. Kids now have a new game to play. They can play God. Pilsbury dough boy fry’s in the lake of fire. You get HELL! fry baby fry!

If you think this is just crazy. Remember I am just the messenger. Jesus is the one that had to talk about JFK. So he had a reason for doing that. Only God knows who the killer is. This is proof that Christ talked to me and that is the reason he told me "Who killed JFK". It is proof. I had forgotten about the case years ago. This is a cold case now, it been 45 years since the shooting.

I also read the part about giving false prophesy. God says false prophets go to Hell or something like that. I only repeat what God told me. Now what I wrote above is from God. He told me who killed JFK in 2006. The above is not a lie or a joke and I am going to HEAVEN without fear.

Before I forget. Gods messages usually have more than one meaning. F S could also stand for “Fence Shooter”.

Who are the co-conspirators? Turns out that there are two policemen named Tippit, and one Tippett working in the Dallas police Department that same year(1963). Back to the clue word Fritters. That is plural, you know about plural. We have two fritters. The co-conspirators name is Gayle M. Tippit.

Now the Dallas Police Departtment obviously covered up and framed Oswald. He was the Patsy. They did it cause it is very possible that one of the other police officers rushing to the scene saw Tippet fleeing the scene carrying a rifle. They covered it up because of the embarrassment of one of their own was the man that killed JFK? And the Warren commission must have also figured that out so they stuck with the Dallas Dept. story saying that it was Oswald. It could have been a National embarrassment. Now if you look at the evidence like I did. It is easy to see that the DAllas Police Dept tampered with the evidence over and over again. And they did a very bad job of it too.

Now this is my opinion, not Gods. I think God is behind the creation of the Internet. I could never have been able to figure out a lot of his messages without the use of the Internet. People on the Net have been a big help to me. God talks to other people too, they just don’t know it. God let me know it was him.

Now I just made solving the case of “Who shot JFK?”, look easy. I also gave you proof here. Did you see it? You ask where’s the proof. The proof is that it is impossible for anyone to repeat what I just did above. I mean try it. And I do that over and over again in all of God’s messages.
See if you can make up a word that is a fried food (like fritters). Unjumble the letters to reveal the name of the killer (Tippit). Then divide the word Tippit into words that describe what happened. Tip- means that JD Tippit was paid for the job and the presidency was over turned. Pit - means that he went to Hell for what he did. Pit means the worst Hell.

See if you can prove me wrong. Show me how easy it is to make up a name like “Fritters” that solves the crime. This clue is ingenious. God came up with the name “FRITTERS”. God is a genius, not me. I am only the messenger.

Then the two remaining letters F. S. stands for Fence Shooter. It's INGENIUS!

Then on top of that it just so happens that there are two Tippit’s working in the Dallas Police Department in 1963. Fritters (plural) means we have more than one Fritter going in the deep fryer . The other shooter is Gayle M. Tippit. He goes to Hell too. Now I did some research on Gayle M Tippit. There is very little information on him unlike JD Tippit. In my search I found two Gayle Tippit’s still in Dallas. One died in 1967 and the other is married and still lives in Texas. So the other conspirator could still be alive and has managed to avoid detection.

This is where it gets intesting. Does Gayle M. Tippit come forward and ask God to forgive him? I think he also has to ask the American people to forgive him for his part in the murder of the president or he gets the worst Hell just like JD did. God told me that waiting until the 11th hour is too late. God is forgiving, but you can’t wait until your on your death bed to ask to be forgiven.

Now if Gayle M. Tippit wants to save himself from the deep fryer. (This could be a long fry, not a quick dip.) He has to come forward and ask to be forgiven. He still gets death or Hell but it won’t be the worst Hell. Just like the worst death is being crucified.

[buy viagra]

Hello everyone ...

Excellent blog ... I love your blog ... every day we thank God for making this wonderful world we live in and give us the ability to feel love for others and we also have to see to the love of God comes first in our hearts every day so be stronger ...

Thanks a lot
Coral T. Rose

[Ajf 4]

I like romantic poetry, long, but short poems are very simple words, this is I happened to see your blog, I found that you have a blog, I like personality, it makes me happy, may you continue, I'll pay attention to your blog!