Do you hear it?

The voice that whispers sickness to you.

The voice that sings despair.

The voice that tells you you have no future.

The voice that hisses death in your ear.

The voice that never stops speaking so you can’t hear life.

You can’t hear joy.

You can’t hear faith.

You can’t hear God.

But you can hear him really.

Listen.

You have, living within you, a greater power and if you close your eyes and really listen between the scary little voices you will hear a still, small voice telling you to get up.

Demons have no power here.

Tell the demons to shut up, to be silent because the power that was in Christ lives in you through the Holy Spirit.

It’s there, not hidden or gone like you think it is.

You can order those voices to be gone.

He gave you the power to wage war against the powers of the dark world, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Put on the armor and get ready but if you’re too tired to fight, remember that he will do the fighting for you because the battle is ultimately his to fight and win.

 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)

This is a blog post with no purpose. Just a ramble. It’s when I invite you to have some tea, coffee, cocoa or some other hot beverage with me. It’s when I also remind you to drink responsibly! Usually, this is a joke because I don’t think my blog readers are heavy alcohol drinkers. *wink* You all seem more like the coffee and herbal tea type to me and that’s not a bad thing. Of course, I know one reader who sips a glass of wine from time to time, but they aren’t laying in a gutter somewhere drunk like an Edgar Allan Poe recreation, so I think that’s fine.

Anyhow, I have digressed.

This week I wanted to go back to the weeks before Christmas when I was in a little Christmas bubble, and everything seemed hopeful and happy.

I mean I literally have wanted to crawl into a cocoon and not come out for several weeks. It’s not an exaggeration.

I can’t write about part of what has been going on or who showed up at my front door this week, but I would ask that those who follow me and who pray would pray for us right now as we are the subject of false accusations that have kept me awake at night.

Being awake hasn’t been a good thing since I also lost sleep when I was sick and when my mom was in the hospital from December 30^th to January 8.

All of what has been going on in my life feels like a clear supernatural attack from forces unseen as mentioned in Ephesians 6:12:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

It has been one thing after another. Not even our dog is safe since she has developed horrible itching and a rash and had to have something I can’t talk about on my blog done to her at the vet two weeks ago. Poor thing. Hopefully, things will clear up for her soon. As of Friday afternoon, as I am writing this, she’s already getting better, luckily.

Between trying to send documentation to refute the false accusations, taking care of the dog, and trying to stop internal trembling I have been having, I felt like I didn’t have a lot of breaks this week until Friday when I just put as much as I could aside and decided to try to read, listen to books, and watch as much light stuff as I could.   

I’ll share more of what I watched tomorrow during Sunday Bookends but this was one thing I watched that helped calm me:

I am reading a variety of books, which I will ramble about tomorrow as well. What I really need to do to help my nerves is take a walk and I know that but I’m so stressed that the idea of leaving the house almost seems too much.  How awful is that? Plus it has been cold and blah out.

It’s so weird but when you are really down, you realize how much the little things mean. For example, I made myself a cup of hot cocoa with the perfect mix of cocoa and maple syrup yesterday and it was amazing. I literally just sat and sipped it and sighed and for a few minutes forgot about everything.

Talking to online friends (who are real friends) about anything other than the drama in my life has been nice too. Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I had a thrilling conversation about raisins yesterday. We discussed how evil it is when someone makes cookies and you think they are chocolate chip but they are actually raisins.

That is a huge pet peeve of The Boy who had a mini meltdown one day at his grandparents when they offered him a cookie that he thought was a chocolate chip cookie but turned out to be oatmeal raisin. It’s now a running joke. My dad even gave him raisins for Christmas. He did receive some homemade chocolate chip cookies for his birthday to make up for how many times his grandparents kept giving him oatmeal raisin cookies.

I also shared that the raisins The Boy was given for Christmas have the texture of mouse droppings, though I’ve never eaten mouse droppings. She then shared that her son enjoys flavored raisins, such as tropical raisins and I was blown away because I had no idea there was such a thing.

I then shared with her my favorite quote about raisins, which comes from the movie Benny & Joon when Joon tells Sam that raisins are just humiliated grapes and that the California Raisins scare her. Those raisins always terrified me as a child too. That’s just not natural.

So what do you think of raisins? Did you know they have flavored raisins? Or were you as clueless as me?

What hot beverage are you having today? Hot herbal tea, coffee, or, like me, hot cocoa?

And how has your week gone? Let me know in the comments.

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

I mentioned yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Tea and Chat post (or whatever I am calling it because I change the name every time I post it) that we had a very rough week. You can read more about my sickness and my mom’s week-long hospital stay in that post.

Today I hope to mentally recover a bit from all the craziness with some reading and catching up on The Chosen before the new episode premieres tonight. I will also most likely visit my parents and help Mom with her recovery from gallbladder surgery.

What I/we’ve been Reading

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was sick this week and up all night one night and most of the night a couple more. During the all-nighter, I started A Highland Christmas by M.C. Beaton. It is a Hamish MacBeth Mysteries book and the first I’ve read of M.C. Beaton’s.

I will finish it today.

I’m also reading The Reckoning Trees by Alicia Gilliam and enjoying it. I decided I needed something lighter on the night I couldn’t fall asleep so I put it aside then but am back into it this week.

This upcoming week I will be plowing through the rest of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with The Boy.

At night Little Miss and I have been listening to Fortunately The Milk by Neil Gaiman or reading Paddington Marches On.

The Husband is reading a collection of short stories inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

The Boy seems to be avoiding reading until we get back into school on Monday.

What We watched/are Watching

With everyone being sick or running around this week, we didn’t find much time to sit down and watch anything together.  I watched Anne of Green Gables The Sequel and also a few episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.

What I’m Listening To

Right now I am listening to The Mistletoe Countess by Pepper Basham on Audible.

I’m ashamed to say that I did not listen to music this week. I think if I had it would have made the week a bit less stressful.

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Beyond the Season, the Christmas novella I shared here on the blog for 12 days in December was free this week on Amazon and I meant to share that news here on the blog but got completely distracted. Thursday is the last day for the sale.

A copy of the book can also be downloaded for free here on the blog by clicking on the link, Beyond the Season, at the top of the page, or visiting this Book Funnel link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/mzgwhaihwq

For a refresher, the novella is part of the Spencer Valley Chronicles.

The description:

Christmas has come to Spencer Valley and Robert and Alex are busy trying to pull of some big surprises for the women they love. If only life didn’t try to keep getting in the way and messing up their plans. Will they be able to finish their Christmas surprises in time and will there be a Christmas proposal for one of the characters from the small town readers have fallen in love with?

By Ronald Robinson (my dad), December 2022

One morning on the family farm in 1927 a tussle broke out between a 16-year-old and his 25-year-old uncle. The reason I do not know but, by the account of the nephew after the tussle his uncle threw a dung (manure) fork at him. A few of you may know what a dung (manure) fork is. At that point, I assume it got more serious The nephew again overpowered his uncle and dragged him through the cow drop, and left him there. Some of you also know what a cow drop is.
That was the lad’s last day at his home. The next day in New Albany he was waiting for the freight train. A gentleman from another farm approached him, “Where do you think you are going? ” In that day trains were linked nationwide even from New Albany. The lad answered “New York City”. The elder farmer said, “You come with me.”

At his farm, he put the young man, for the first time behind a team of horses with a sod till plow and instructed him, “You fix your eyes on a mark on the other side of this field and do not look back” Side note: There are times to look back but, not until the field is plowed. This man and his wife gave the lad a home and provided an upstairs bedroom that had a candle in it for light. The need to be frugal was the time so when he retired for the evening the misses would give him two matches to light the candle. That young man later attended Wilkes barre Business School. After many years of driving truck, he and his wife, a Wilkes-barre Business School graduate became successful benevolent business owners.

When I was a young child, each year after Christmas at New Years’ time I accompanied my parents to my uncle’s and aunt’s home, at the same farm and a meal was prepared. Hominy was always served because the nephew liked it. Me, I did not like it at all. That was by the way, where I saw a television for the first time. The screen was round, slightly larger than a dinner plate, and the images that evening could not be made out. Even after I was married, Carolyn and I were invited to that Hominy meal one time. I do not know when it happened or if the healing process was gradual. but, reconciliation had taken place.

If this year I find some Hominy I will savor it.

Of course, that lad was my Dad.
Bitterness and unforgiveness destroy lives.
Christmas time is a good reconciliation time. Reconciliation is possible when Jesus reigns.
“And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end”. Sometimes we do not see His reign, Why? Who is the house of Jacob? Jesus reigns where He is welcome, where there is room for Him to reign.

When there was no room in that inn years ago, Jesus as a baby reigned from that stable. He now reigns in the hearts and affairs of of men when we allow Him, when we make room. Amazing that the ruler of the universes came down from His Glory and knocks on the door of our heart. May we make room, room for the king of Kings to reign in our heart and help us reconcile with others as Father Reconciles us to Himself when we accept Jesus.

RGR, December 2022

“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation”