Jesus is the King of Israel.
He came to save his people from their sins.
Who are his people? Israelites?
Israelites wrote the various books of the Bible.
Of the twelve apostles, only Paul was sent to the Gentiles.
Paul told Gentiles how to become Israelites.
Gentiles took Paul's works and assembled the Bible.
Then they created the Gentile Church, ... and scorned the name of Israel.
The Wonder Years is one of my favorite TV shows. It is about reminiscences of life back around 1970 when a boy was in junior high and high school.
The fictional character, Kevin Arnold, would have been two years older than me. He had my math book and experienced many of the things I did at the time.
In one of the episodes, Frank and Denise, Kevin finds himself caught between a couple having relationship troubles, and both of them use him to eventually get back together again. At one point, Kevin experiences "the most voluptuous girl at McKinley High" apparently falling for him...
She kisses him in her car...
And transfers her chewing gum into his mouth...
Thrown out the window on September 8, 2024 ...
... and it's still there. I see it almost every day.
The Frank and Denise episode first aired on October 23, 1991.
Kevin with the girl who smoked, and whose heart he broke.
My dad passed away almost twenty five (25) years ago, and Mom remarried a couple of years later. Her new husband took her to the Carolinas, a place she had always wanted to live. They enjoyed each other for eleven (11) years, and then he died. We brought her back to Midland to live, and after a couple of years she was baptized in the ocean and received the Holy Spirit.
Her wishes were to involve both of her husbands in her funeral arrangements. I had been thinking about going down to Matthews to make sure things are done right.
Instead, I have decided to let the funeral professionals deal with the situation, which will allow me to avoid the 740 mile trip down and then back again. It honors my mother's wishes while giving me peace.
My mom died very peacefully this past Wednesday evening, October 23, 2024.
I took this photo during the early afternoon. That is the way her hands were.
She waited for a particular caregiver to arrive for the overnight shift. Both my sister and I were with her.
Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12 NIV)
It has not been easy. I visited Mom almost every day during this past year to help make sure she was getting what she needed, but mostly to spend time with her and let her know I was there.
I was coached by many people, particularly my sister. She had helped care for her in-laws several years ago and the wisdom she shared with me helped me adapt to our mom's situation.
My sister advocated for our mother's health and our brother watched over her finances. My sister lives five hours away from Midland, and my brother lives out of state. I am the eldest.
Mom was in the memory unit for about two years. She was very strong physically, but became an elopement risk and needed help staying safe. She was not very happy to be "put in jail," as she called it in the beginning, but it is what she wanted when she was of sound mind and she eventually became generally happy in her surroundings, although she could be "growly bear" at times.
The caregiving staff loved her. In her last days, many of them came in to visit her on their own time. One came in on her day off to twirl Mom's hair. My sister and I were very touched.
The caregiver who was with us when she died said a couple of days before that Mom had been making strange noises, almost like "tongues." I told her that's what it was. She said it was like a language.
In her final months, Mom had started making strange babbles. Most people said nothing about it, but I knew what it was. I knew about her history.
Back in 2016, she was baptized in the ocean and received the Holy Spirit. For those interested, I told some of her story in a previous blog post: The Rage of Neptune.
I do not recall ever hearing Mom "speak in tongues" after being at Neptune Beach, and I do not believe she knew she had that capability. She
continued with her life-long church-going habits until she was no longer
capable of going to church, and I do not recall ever discussing it with her, but as her mental capabilities faded the Holy Spirit made His presence known through her "prayer language," as I call it.
Towards the end, she was not speaking much but her "tongues" would appear as she dealt with stress, like when the caregivers had to move her and take care of her. It was very much like how I use my prayer language when I don't know what to pray for or am under stress myself.
I believe the LORD was letting me know He was in her and that she was okay. I thank Him for that.
(For those who would like more information about this, please read my posts: The Car and the last part of S.W.A.T.)
People were amazed that my sister and I spent as much time as we did with Mom as she was dying. They said that most people do not do that. I told my sister afterwards that I believe it is because people are not comfortable with their own mortality and what death means. I am comfortable with it because I have faith.
Grieving happens along the way when a loved one has a long-term illness or condition. There are a few tears in the end, but generally the final departure is a relief. That is how it was with both of my parents, but not my wife. I lost her during a matter of hours and my grief for her was intense and prolonged.
Both my wife and my mom are now gone, and I am at peace. I sense freedom, freedom to embrace what the LORD has in store for me. I can now travel. During the two years my mother was in Memory Care, I only spent one night away from home. I knew the LORD wanted me in Midland because my mom was here. That constraint no longer exists. The possibilities are endless.
Chemical plants and refineries operate continuously for many months and even years, but eventually they must be shut down for maintenance. When they are, they are very different places.
Instead of the loud roar of compressors and high pitched whine of pumps, there is relative silence. The clanging of tools, crackling of welding arcs, and humming of diesel generators fill the air, but it is nothing like the sound of the operating plant. Lots of things have to happen in a short amount of time, because "time is money." The system must be emptied out, cleaned out, inspected, repaired, and modified where necessary. Safety equipment must be checked and refurbished, and known weak points must be replaced with new parts. Then everything must be buttoned back up and safely refilled with hazardous materials so it can all be restarted. This typically all takes a number of weeks to accomplish, and requires a lot of planning and preparation.
You can always tell where there is a shutdown happening. Cranes.
Our bodies apparently need occasional "shutdowns," too. They are designed for it, but we rarely, if ever, carry them out. They are called "fasts," and they are a foreign concept to our modern, western culture.
Fasting is not something I ever really considered doing for any lengthy period, but I did write about it as part of a previous post in 2016. I concluded...
I believe fasting is appropriate when we are specifically called to do so by the Holy Spirit, or we have lost contact with Him, but most of the behaviors promoted by this particular book are not relevant under the New Covenant.
I still agree with that assessment, and the analysis I did in that post.
As I previously discussed, I lost my wife in January, and since then it has basically been just the Holy Spirit and me. My wife and I had been doing some intermittent fasting, eating about twice a day. In recent weeks I had decreased that to eating one big meal a day. I had also started growing out my beard, simply to see what it did. Eventually things got to the point where the refrigerator was pretty empty, I had used up anything that needed to be used, and I really had no motivation to go to the grocery store. This was not out of laziness, however. It was like I was being blocked.
So, I decided to start fasting, to see what it was like. It was easy because I just did not eat that meal the next day. Or the next. Or the next. The "detox" headaches came first, but I've had those before. Then I had a couple of days where I had a sore throat. Then one ear started popping, and a few days later some wax came out. Lots of interesting things happened, but it all made sense.
I'm not going to go into details, and I am definitely not giving anybody any advice. I will leave that to those who think it is their job to do. I am also not going to get into the length of the fast because this is not about boasting. I just want to convey some of the things that I learned.
...when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:17-18 NIV)
This fast did not start out being "spiritual," but once I was into it I realized it actually was. My beard was long enough that it masked any gaunt appearance of my face. Some of my clothing was already baggy, especially my work clothes, and it was really not obvious to anybody what I was doing. The Holy Spirit had arranged this, but I was still doing it for "health reasons."
Autophagy is the body's mechanism for removing damaged and old cells. It roughly means "self-devouring." Being the engineer that I am, I wanted to see how it worked.
The bottom line was, my body found peace. It was almost like it was saying to me, "Thank you. Thank you for giving me a break!" I continued to take my daily walks, mowed the grass, worked in the garden, talked with the neighbors, and walked downtown to see a couple of concerts. And nobody was the wiser. At least for a while.
I started keeping track of my weight after I was well into it, because I'm an engineer and I wanted to make sure I understood what was going on. Staying hydrated was important, and I continued with my use of sea salt to maintain electrolytes. I got very tired of drinking water.
Later on, I did slow down a lot, and I got weaker. I started thinking a lot about food, and my stomach would periodically try to remind me that it was boss, but it was not. This is where the "spiritual" learning started to kick in. I found myself ignoring my flesh and easily found myself passing much time in spiritual thoughts. These are things I did not anticipate.
More than midway through the fast I needed to fix my mother breakfast in order to get her to an early appointment where she had to be alert, and I made her fried eggs and toast. It was not a problem at all. The next day, I took her grocery shopping, and that wasn't a problem either. It was amazing.
Not knowing how it would end, I decided if someone wanted to arrange a meal, or some event, I would call it quits. Soon after, my mother asked me a number of times to take her out to get something to eat, and she also started to quiz me about what I was doing. I explained it to her and told her it was time to be done. I had started making unforced errors and my primary responsibility was taking care of her.1
God desires mercy, not sacrifice. As I discussed in that other related post, spending time fasting does not show anyone any mercy. Asceticism doesn't do anyone any good; it's showboating. It was time to go eat with my mother, although I told her I needed to take things slowly.
Recommissioning
I picked the time to end my fast, and I recommenced by starting with chicken broth. Then I moved to a couple of eggs. Then, I had a small spoon of raw honey. I had been craving a peanut butter and Miracle Whip sandwich, which is something I ate as a child, but I had to settle for Mayonaise. Then I wanted some of the Gatorade I had bought for my mother because she had been dehydrated, and she gladly gave it to me because she doesn't like the stuff. I asked her for a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich, which is something our family always ate, and she gladly gave me one. (I wanted her to remember that I had ended my fast.) Then I went home and had part of a pastie. You get the idea.
I took it slowly, but it was amazing how quickly my body realized the "famine" was over. I've been craving a lot of bread, which is something I typically do not eat, but apparently that's what my body wants. It doesn't surprise me that Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread. I can sense that these foods are necessary to recharge my glucose stores in my muscles.2 I'm resting a lot.
This is my second day out of my fast, and I went to the grocery store today. I was at such peace. There are some recipes I intend to do, but my primary focus was on getting bread for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and yogurt to repopulate my... you know. My body is amazing, and it is guiding me about what to do.
God's design is so incredible. All glory to him!
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UPDATES, April 3, 2022...
1Relocated and clarified this sentence.
2The book Body By Science by Doug McGuff has been very useful to me. It promotes a very sensible method for building muscle mass and includes the scientific background behind it. You can view a free Internet archive of the book here.
UPDATE, November 6, 2022...
According to these articles in The Epoch Times, fasting and autophagy are natural methods for detoxing from COVID infection and vaccination. So is exposure to sunlight.
U.S. Citizens and citizens of the United States are welcome to listen to my opinions and take my advice at their own risk. We all must learn to self-govern and take responsibility for ourselves.
It has been over two years since my fast, and I feel great. I go to sleep when it gets dark (although not always to bed right away 😂), and wake up when it starts to get light. I am naturally eating less and eating when I get hungry. I have also relaxed some of my dietary practices and moved away from supplements. I get my nutrition through eating food, as God intends.
Out of curiosity, I weighed myself this morning, the first time since ending my fast. I have regained 29 pounds and believe I am at my ideal weight. My "love handles" are gone. My Sweetie would be proud of me, and maybe even a bit amorous. Wouldn't that be nice? 💞
In the year or so after my fast, I did strength training five times. I would like to get back to the gym at some point, but it has not really been important in the big scheme of things.
I am convinced that fasting is an essential part of life and its effects are long-lasting. Eating the way God intends and getting appropriate amounts of sunlight are also key. When we do things God's way, we will be rewarded.
Every baptism and every deliverance is an act of war, and Neptune Beach, Florida, was called a "war zone" by some on Saturday, June 18, 2016. If you read my earlier post, Free, you will know I was there on that day and was delivered from numerous demons. Hallelujah!
The picture on the right is of my 85-year-old mother being led out into the surf to be baptized in water and Spirit. After the team dealt with her, they prayed for me, and I was set free. It was amazing. (I am in the orange shirt, with my hand on my mother's back.)
The weather was just plain unpleasant, with a spitting rain and chilly breeze coming in from the northeast. I looked at the local weather radar on my phone, and there were thunderstorms all around us, but not where we were. We were right on the edge. The weather got uglier as people gathered before the baptisms started, but by the time they were finished the rain had ended and the sky had brightened. Amazing!
In subsequent posts, I described how God sorted me out after my deliverance. You can read them by clicking on the various titles under "Blog Archive," in the sidebar on the right. In this post, I am going to talk about the battle after my deliverance. All glory to God! Thank you, Jesus!!!
I did not have any clue I had unclean spirits, but I knew things were not right. Jesus commands his disciples to cast out demons, but the Church has been very delinquent in that task. Judging by what happened at Neptune Beach, it seems to be very common for people to have unclean spirits. That is why Jesus commands us to cast them out. My pride was cut off at the knees, and I now have much more empathy and patience for everyone because I have a better understanding of the battle.
Creepy Encounter
After making sure my wife had received the Holy Spirit and had spoken in tongues, and after I made a Facebook friend while standing in the water, my mother, wife and I headed for the boardwalk that led back to town and to our vehicle. There was a bench at the end of the boardwalk, and my mother sat down to clean the sand off of her feet and put her socks and shoes back on. Sitting next to her was an old man, holding the stub of a cigarette in his leathery fingers. I'm sorry, but he was just plain creepy. He looked into my eyes and said something that mocked the Holy Spirit, which I will not repeat here. My wife said he looked at her, too. We left as soon as we could.
Now, I do not wish to say anything uncharitable about a fellow member of the human race, and I really have no idea who that person was, but when we were on our way back to the car, I got the impression that who we had just encountered was old "Neptune" himself -- the god of this world. Since that day, the Holy Spirit has not corrected me at all about this, and my wife agrees it was very troubling. Given what he said about the Holy Spirit, how he said it, where he was sitting, and what had been taking place below him in the water, the person was certainly from the darkness, and I believe it was Satan himself. Shortly after writing this, my wife got a bad headache, which we dealt with using prayer.
In previous posts, I talked about how I needed to be "rewired," and how it seemed like I needed to learn how to drive again. I also talked about three vivid dreams I had, and how the first one was the demons trying to come back. I get chills just thinking about it as I write this!
Good Things
There were good and amazing things that happened after I was set free. We had stumbled onto a McDonald's restaurant in Jacksonville on Friday while we were trying to follow a navigation system to a different one, and we felt we belonged there, so we made it our "home base" on that side of the river. It turns out there was a man there who was handicapped, had difficulty communicating, and who frequented the establishment because people fed him there. His name was Walter. I talked to him, laid my hands on him, prayed for him, and fed him the biggest breakfast they had -- all things I would never have considered doing before. I was bouncing around and looking for people to pray for, and my wife and mother were delighted with my transformation. It was amazing!
We also had an amazing time the day after the baptisms on Sunday. It was a day to connect with people, and we saw both light and darkness. We spent much of our time with a dear sister who was part of the group we were with on Friday, when we got "kick started" at a Walmart and learned how to pray for people to be healed. I was overjoyed to find someone else who understood me, besides my wonderful wife, of course. We prayed for each other and arranged to talk again when we got home.
Travel Troubles
When we left Jacksonville on Monday, we first headed to Melbourne Beach to see my mom's brother and sister-in-law. We ate lunch with them, and had a nice visit. My uncle told me they had experienced the most torrential downpour he had ever seen on Saturday evening. He also said the lightning was continuous. I have only seen that a couple of times in my life myself, so I understood what he was talking about.
We left there and traveled down the barrier island to Vero Beach, where we then took a bridge back to the mainland. As I drove, there were times when the word "freedom" started repeating in my head, just like I heard from the man God used to deliver me. Eventually, I realized it was perhaps a warning I was being attacked spiritually. Not having expected any of this, I was concerned the spirits were trying to come back. I said to my wife it was like my "shields were up," to use some Star Trek lingo. Jesus took care of me, of course, but I was still pretty rattled. At some point, I also got sleepy. It may have been due to my lunch, and eating certain foods we were not used to eating, but it happened more than once, and eventually a pattern developed that didn't necessarily correlate with food. By the way, correlation does not imply causation.1
When we got to the mainland, I was following our navigation system to the Fort Myers area, where my brother and his family live. I was looking for Highway 60, but somehow the navigation system got us messed up, and I began to distrust it. Eventually, I shut it off and resorted to "the old fashioned way" -- I got out the road atlas. That didn't work either. I got lost and could not find 60. Around that time, I got a phone call from Willoughby, Ohio. We don't know anybody from there, and it was at the most inopportune time. Today, I just looked at my phone records, and they only show one "outgoing call" to that number. (Huh?) We didn't call them; they called us! Strange.
By the way, Vero Beach, FL is where the "Acts 2 Disciple School" is located. I did not realize that at the time, but it is an interesting correlation with my spiritual difficulties. I know God is doing a lot of good things there, so it makes sense there would be a spiritual battle going on.
Eventually, I found State Highway 60, and it took me to Interstate 95. I finally knew where I was! After traveling south on 95 for a while, we got off at State Highway 70 and got something to eat. We then headed across the state, per our original plan. I still was not using the navigation systems -- we had tried using our phones, too.
After we had been traveling for a while, I got really sleepy again. Yes, it could have been the food, but... I pulled off the highway onto a side road, and my wife took over driving while I snoozed and prayed. I was a mess, but she supported me.
My wife wanted the navigation system back on because she had no idea where we were going, so I set it back up. When we were on US27 in the middle of farm country, the navigation system started telling us to turn off the main highway onto minor county roads. We ignored it and turned the sound off. We switched drivers again because she had had enough. The navigational map was useful, but the device itself was somehow compromised. Something was seriously messing with it. We finally arrived at my brother's place late in the evening, and by then the attacks had subsided.
Family Visit
We spent several days with my brother's family, and it was a very nice time. He had retired from his job in Michigan a couple of years before, but we had not made it down to visit them yet. They enjoyed showing us their home and community, and we certainly enjoyed seeing it all and being with them.
In the days after my deliverance, I experienced complete freedom when it came to praying. It had never been so easy to pray, and I was "like a kid in a candy store." It was like my wheels had been stuck in the mud, and now they were freewheeling. I prayed for all kinds of things, and they just poured out. It was amazing. I certainly had a desire to pray before, but it was like a chore and had become difficult to do. Now I understand why! In my new state, I was praying for all kinds of things, and it was so joyful!
One of the crazy things I prayed for was the ability to "see Satan coming" in a way that would not be frightening to me. The dear sister we spent time with on Sunday told us she often sees demons, and it frightens her. Apparently her daughter has the same gift, or problem, depending upon how you look at it. Having seen something "ugly" once before myself, I asked the Father to let me see them as clowns, and my prayer was in Jesus' name, of course. I hate clowns, but they are just clowns. As a baby, I must have been startled by a jack-in-the-box because I also hate the tune Pop Goes the Weasel. As kids, we had a jack-in-the-box that played that song and had a creepy clown that popped out of it. Why do parents give their kids such things? Ugh. (Check out the "origin" of the jack-in-the-box on Wikipedia here. No wonder!)
There was really only one time I felt spiritually attacked while we were with my brother in the Fort Myers area. We were driving back to our lodgings after having dinner with them, and all of a sudden I got sleepy again. (Yes, I know. Food.) I pulled the car into a drug store parking lot and my wife went in to buy something while I went to sleep. While we were there, about a dozen men with motorcycles were at a gas station across the street. It wasn't long before they all mounted up and noisily took off down the road at high speed, one after the other. Once they were gone, my sleepiness cleared up. It was weird.
The Trip North
I was dreading the return north to Michigan. Many years ago, when our older daughter was eleven, our family went on a "mission trip" to Mexico with a large group of people from the church we were members of. It was an amazing time, and there were lots of spiritual things that happened while we were there. On the way home, something got messed up in the airline's computer system. My last name on my boarding card got changed to a misspelled form I have never liked, but the names on the other boarding cards of the rest of my family members stayed correct. (We still have the boarding cards.) It was a full flight and some people got bumped off the plane after they had boarded. In waltzed an unpleasant man and two young women. One of the women sat next to me in the aisle seat, where my daughter should have been, and my daughter had to sit with someone else in our large party. The woman was dressed like a hooker, but I looked at the side of her face and felt compassion for her. We were seated next to the engine in the back of the plane, behind a lavatory. It was a very strange arrangement. My wife was further up the plane with our other daughter. The young woman sat back and placed her legs on the bulkhead of the lavatory in a very provocative way. I tried to be friendly, so I engaged her in light conversation and asked her about herself. She said that she was studying to be a sex therapist. Oh boy. I decided to "keep my eyes on Jesus," and started to read my Bible. She stayed with us through a layover in San Antonio and the flight to Saint Louis, MO. Near the end of our encounter, I decided to use the Sword of the Spirit and "witness" to her. When the plane landed, she couldn't get out of there fast enough. That was not the only attack I experienced on that trip, but it certainly was the most memorable. (Yes, I told my wife all about it!)
Anyway, I knew it was going to be a rough trip home from Florida, and I planned to head back a different way than the way we had come.
Back in Jacksonville on Sunday, I told the dear sister that we had gotten there by traveling 1100 miles in an aging vehicle with front-end suspension issues. We had taken it in for maintenance before we left, and asked them specifically to fix the front-end, but they couldn't find anything wrong. We smiled and trusted God to get us where we needed to go. The dear sister prayed about the car for us. She asked God to give us a brand-new car, which I found a bit troubling, but everything else was very sweet. She also asked God to shorten our trip in some way, but I don't remember specifically how she said it. Later, when I discussed it with my wife, we had not heard the same things. What I heard took me to the story about Philip and the Ethiopian in Acts 8, where the disciple disappeared and the Spirit miraculously and instantaneously took him away to someplace else. I truly believed that was going to happen to us. My wife heard about the new car, but nothing about a shortened trip.
So, I ended up coupling the dream I had about the truck accident with my absolutely certain knowledge that this woman had prophesied we were going to miraculously have our trip shortened by a thousand miles, and that it was going to happen before we left Florida. I also figured it was going to be in the middle of a thunderstorm, because how else would God prevent other drivers from seeing us suddenly disappear? This was all confirmed, of course, when I heard Vanessa Carlton's song A Thousand Miles playing while we were eating lunch in a restaurant the day we were heading north through Florida. I was in tears because it seemed God was being so good to me. My wife comforted me, although she did not know what was going on in my head. I was deceived.
During the afternoon, once again, I got drowsy, and I stopped at a rest area and took a nap. I was zonked out! When I woke up and was ready to go, I turned the key and the starter would not engage. The battery was drained. I had left the headlights on. We had gone through a thunderstorm and I had forgotten to turn them off when we stopped. Great. I had no idea what to do because I was still a bit groggy from sleeping, but my wife suggested getting a jump-start from somebody. Hey, great idea, except we didn't have any jumper cables. But, that's no problem, because God knows what's going on and there must be somebody here that has some cables and needs prayer, so I thought.
While we had been sitting there, we had been watching some people who were absolutely strange. I'm sorry, but they were. They appeared to be an older couple and their adult son. She had a pronounced limp of some sort, and all three appeared to be, at least to me, rather clownish. My mother and wife thought they were creepy. I got out of the car and approached them, asking them if they had any jumper cables. The father said that they did, but he was sorry. We couldn't use them because they were in the trunk. I asked if we could get them out, and he replied that we couldn't because they were in the trunk. Finally, the son clarified matters and said that they were moving and that the jumper cables were in the truck. Apparently there was a truck someplace else, but it wasn't where we were. My wife was very glad they didn't have any jumper cables.
So, I walked away from them and waited for someone else to come along. There was a woman sitting in the back seat of the car next to us, but I didn't want to frighten her so I didn't say anything. Soon, a man and another woman came out of the restrooms and approached the same car. I told the man my predicament and asked him if he had any jumper cables. He didn't think so, but I looked at the woman who was standing inside the open driver's-side door, and she said that she thought they had some in their trunk. They looked, and sure enough, they had some. They pulled their car around and we got our vehicle started. I then explained to the man where we had been and that I had prayed for people and they got healed. He said he had no pain, but that he was going through a difficult divorce, which he did not want. So, I prayed for him and his situation, thanked God for the opportunity, and gave him a Last Reformation movie card. I was so confident, and it was so much fun! God is good!!
As we approached Georgia, I was having a difficult time dealing with my expectations concerning the "shortened trip." As we entered Georgia, nothing happened. I was both disappointed and relieved. I was also embarrassed, although I had not told anyone about it at that point. We stopped at the first big town, Valdosta, and looked for somewhere to spend the night. I was exhausted.
I went to the first place I saw, because I felt God wanted us to stay there. Ha, ha! The place was crowded, and turned out to be the most expensive place we stayed at during the entire trip. The elevator was small, overused and sloooow. Shortly after we turned off the light to go to sleep, some kind of alarm buzzed loudly. The next morning, my mother, who was staying in a separate room, was fifteen minutes early for breakfast and we were fifteen minutes late. She was frustrated because the breakfast area was overcrowded and most of the food was gone. We decided to eat somewhere else, so we returned upstairs to load up our bags.
After getting things ready in our room, I went to the lobby to get one of two luggage carts, and none were available. I waited. While I waited, one of the carts showed up loaded with bags. The people who were using it left one of their young girls with the cart in the lobby while they went over to a table, sat down and talked for a long time with some others who were eating breakfast. I waited. And I waited. And the girl waited. And I forgave them. And I forgave them some more. Finally, an empty cart showed up from the parking lot, and as I was taking it across the lobby, the man with the other one had relieved the girl of guard duty and was wheeling his luggage across the lobby to the hotel door. I think he saw me and realized that I had been waiting for a cart all that time, but there was no apology. That's okay. We moved on.
We got loaded up and drove down the road to a McDonald's. When we pulled in, I parked near the entrance, next to a "handicapped only" space where a man was getting out of his car. As he walked into the restaurant ahead of us, it was apparent he had a significant limp. I figured if he left the restaurant at the same time we did, then it was the signal I was supposed to offer to pray for him. That is exactly what happened, with the assistance of some slight delaying tactics on my part. (Hey, I wanted to do this!) Right in front of my wife and mother, I asked the man what the problem was, and he proceeded to tell me all about every pain he had and every decrepit part of his body. He went on and on and on about it. I just smiled. I told him I had prayed for some people and they got healed. All of a sudden he had to get going, and he declined the prayer. My mother said, "He didn't know what he was missing." We still laugh about it, although it really wasn't funny. I guess he just wasn't ready.
Peace
At some point during all of this, I came to the conclusion that I can't handle this kind of spiritual warfare, if that is what it is. I remember stopping at another rest area and telling Jesus that I'd had enough. I repented. I realized that He was sitting right next to the Father, so I asked him to intercede for me and ask the Father to give me whatever it was I needed, because I surely didn't know! From that point forward, I began to gain peace. I was done with "spiritual warfare," and I was going to leave it all to Jesus.
After we went through Atlanta, I got off of I-75 and headed for Nashville. We spent the night in a much smaller place in Tennessee, and it was so peaceful. The next day, we traveled to Northern Kentucky, and spent the night in a town where we lived when our children were born. It was like being home. We went to our favorite pizza place, and it tasted as wonderful as we remembered. The next day we traveled up through Indiana and on home. We had no unexplained troubles with the navigation system during the entire trip north.
Two days after we were back, I took the car into the same service department and had them look at the front end again. They came back and told me they could not let the car leave because the vehicle was in an "unroadworthy condition." Of course it was! The construction zones in Indiana pounded the suspension so much that we could hear pieces of metal jingling around every time we went over a bump. They fixed it and we are still driving the same vehicle. We traveled 3410.6 miles with a bad front end -- thank you, Jesus!
Why have I told you all of this? Because even if we have the full Gospel, and have been delivered from unclean spirits, we are still subject to spiritual deception, lies and the tricks of the Devil. It is not about him; it is about Jesus, but we need to understand what we are dealing with, and more importantly, we need to be forgiving and give grace to everyone, especially to those who are brothers and sisters in Christ. It is for these reasons that Jesus commands us to do such things as:
Love one another.
Forgive one another.
Pray for one another.
Listen to and follow the Holy Spirit.
Heal the sick.
Cast out demons.
Lovingly follow protocol when dealing with sin. (Matthew 18)
Repent, strive to keep a clean heart, and be holy.
Stay humble, because we can all be deceived.
... and discern truth by two or three witnesses.
You might think I was "nuts" during this time, and you would be wrong. I was perfectly sane, but I was being influenced by the darkness. Old Neptune lost some of his influence and control over me, but he still had his tricks. Jesus has healed me spiritually and closed up the gaps that had allowed Satan in, but if I drift away from the Holy Spirit, I will make myself vulnerable. I am absolutely terrified of being separated from God, and I love him so much because he rescued me from things I knew nothing about.
I am so grateful to have had this experience. It humbled me. It tore down my pride. It made me empathetic to others, and it taught me priceless lessons about what we are up against. The issues and problems I had before Jacksonville are still with me, except I now know my mother and wife "have the full package," and that they have changed, as have I. But there is still much work to do, and I know even better now that "it is not my project."
Jesus, thank you so much for what you have done for me. I cannot adequately express my thankfulness, and I am afraid I am unworthy of even trying to understand you, or even approach you. My love is so great. My spirit is so willing, but my flesh is so weak. I can think of nothing else but following you.
Oh, please, dear brothers and sisters, it is not our project; it is the Father's project. It is not about us; it is about Jesus. It is not our efforts that are going to win the battles; it is through our willingness and obedience to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit that we will see God do amazing things. I tell you all of this because I love you, and I want you to share in the joy that I have, and that Jesus is desperate for you to have. Please get on your faces. Plead for understanding. Ask Him to reveal to you the things in you that displease him, and confess your sins. Repent from unholy behavior and disobedience. Do what He tells you to do.
God is good. All glory to Him! Thank you, Jesus!!!
-----------------
UPDATE, July 12, 2022...
Notice the date of this post? 9 + 2 = 11
Amazing...
So, ... I need to explain. The picture is from the British movie Clockwise, starring John Cleese as headmaster (principal), Mister Stimpson. My wife and I saw it in a theater when we lived there, and when our children were old enough we all had fun quoting many of its lines to one another. "Nine twenty" was one of our most common quotations. I have a wall clock that I got tired of winding every day, so I stopped it and put the hands on 9:20. It's been that way for years.
We liked the movie because we lived there and had experienced the British culture. Our girls started school there, and they had their own version of "Mister Stimpson," who was actually a very kind and nice man.
More recently, I've learned the significance of 9:20. The digits add to eleven (11), which symbolizes twin pillars. It's a Masonic symbol, and is related to the Hegelian Dialectic.
It's actually very dark. I believe Cleese has Illuminati connections, as do many in Hollywood, and the symbolism in his works, like "9:20" and its context, provides evidence for that opinion. (Mister Stimpson: "What's nine twenty?" Boy in the long line of students in the hallway: "Executions, sir.")
I discussed the symbolism in some of my other posts, and describe some of the details in Pearls.
UPDATE, August 19, 2022...
(Click to enlarge.)
This photo was definitely taken on June 18, 2016 on Neptune Beach, Florida. The man God used to show me how to heal the sick in a Walmart store is in the photo, and so is the man God used to set me free. It really was a "war zone."
The Last Reformation people published this picture on their website or social media. I took a screen shot of it because it meant a lot to me.
UPDATE, October 5, 2022...
People have invested a lot of money in ocean-front and near-ocean-front properties. The Fort Myers area is a classic example. The ocean is a beautiful place and people like living there, especially on barrier islands.
Hurricanes form barrier islands. Their winds push massive amounts of water inland, and when the winds subside that water rushes back into the sea, carrying soil with it. That water goes through cuts leaving much of the actual beach intact. Those beaches are the barrier islands, and the formerly flooded areas are swamps and inter-coastal waterways.
This landscape is periodically impacted by normal tropical storms. The combination of people's desires to live by the ocean, their resources of wealth, and the inevitable reoccurrence of tropical weather results in a predictable high risk of catastrophic financial loss.
How can this situation be used to generate massive profits? Government-services corporations are in business to make a profit. They do that by providing government services. Who deals with the emergencies and aftermath of disasters? Government. Government-services corporations, to be more accurate. Hmmm.... 🤔
Hurricane Irma, September, 2017
When we visited my brother in 2016, I "prayer walked" many times while I was there. How I did that and my motivations for doing it are between me and the LORD, but it happened. About a year later, Hurricane Irma came up the Florida Gulf Coast. Everyone was concerned that particular storm would rake the coast with "right-quadrant" winds and storm surge, but it moved inland and had much less impact than expected.
I plotted the track of that hurricane and the places I had prayed the year before. It's almost like those prayers resulted in a barrier that forced the storm to turn away from my brother's location. As I have discussed on this blog, the Spiritual Realm is real, and I am convinced those who are with me are more than those who are with them (2 Kings 6:16). Did my actions influence the path of that storm? I don't know, but it is an interesting question.
Most people consider weather to be an "act of God." If God can be influenced by our prayers, then we can indirectly control the weather through Him.
Can men control the weather through their own natural and carnal means? If they have enough wealth and resources, can they steer hurricanes to make a profit? Hmmm.... 🤔
My brother is "homeless" at the moment. Hurricane Ian recently made landfall at Fort Myers, and Estero Island suffered the most damage. His place is still intact, but it is uninhabitable because infrastructure was destroyed. He thinks it will be months before they might be able to live there again. Apparently 90% of the homes on that island are irreparably damaged or gone. He doesn't think the place will ever be the same.
As the storm approached, it was predicted the storm surge would be around twelve (12) to eighteen (18) feet above normal, and I was horrified. I knew the right-front quadrant of the storm would be impacting Estero Island, and that is the most dangerous part of a hurricane.
This is the actual path of Hurricane Ian (2022). It intensified after it came off of Cuba and became a strong Category 4 storm as it approached Fort Myers.
If I wanted to maximize damage as much as possible in order to ultimately profit from the destruction, and had the ability to steer and intensify a hurricane, what would I target? Probably an area with high investment along the ocean.
Fort Myers, perhaps? 🤔
But how is that possible? Hey! I'm an engineer, and it actually seems pretty simple to me.
Hurricanes are fueled by energy. Where does that energy come from? The sun? When do hurricanes occur? Autumn, in the Northern Hemisphere, typically September. This is after the sun has warmed the ocean all summer and water temperatures are above 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hurricanes spin because of the geometry and motion of the earth. The coriolis effect is due to the earth's rotation. It causes water to circle the drain of our bathtubs when we empty them, and it causes storms to rotate. Rising air causes counter-clockwise rotation in the Northern Hemisphere, and that is why thunderstorms typically move from southwest to northeast in Midwestern America, where I live.
Hurricanes intensify when they move over warmer water. As an engineer, how might I be able to make the water warmer?
How does a microwave oven work? It uses microwaves to heat the food. That food contains water.
Microwave electromagnetic radiation is a form of light; we just cannot see it. It is useful because it specifically heats water. Just like direct sunlight warms our skin, microwaves heat water, and they can do it deep inside of a potato. That is why we have microwave ovens in our kitchens.
How much energy does a microwave oven put into food? Typically 1000 watts. A typical light bulb uses 100 watts of energy. It's all a matter of equipment and infrastructure. Our appliances are plugged into the electric grid.
So, is there a way to use microwaves to heat the ocean in the path of, or inside of, a hurricane? I only have to heat the top surface because that is where water vapor is generated. How much energy would that take, and what kind of equipment would I need? I do not know the answers to those questions, but I'm sure other engineers and scientists have figured it out. Seems plausible to me.
How would I get that energy to its target? Seems like a high location would be ideal. How about space? Hmmm.... 🤔
Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) are a thing. People talk about them on the Internet, and movies certainly use them as fictional realities. Do space-based DEW's actually exist, and are they used to influence the weather? Seems pretty plausible to me.
If I had access to "unlimited" resources and influence, how might I direct energy into a hurricane to increase its intensity and potentially steer it? Given my understanding of Midwestern weather, I would inject the water-vapor energy into the southeastern quadrant of the low pressure system because that is where I see the most powerful thunderstorms develop in storms systems where I live. The coriolis effect increases lift of air in the northern-moving storm winds, and this will result in lots of rain on the northern, front part of a hurricane such as Ian.
And guess what? That's exactly what happened with Ian. The warm air rose on the eastern side of the storm and the water condensed as rain on the northern and western side of it.
In fact, as the storm made landfall, most of the rainfall occurred north of Fort Myers. Hmmm... 🤔
What about steering? I am less certain about it but presume there are ways to target the heating so the updrafts affect the movement of the center of circulation. I'm sure the jerks who play with this stuff learned how to manipulate things as they gained experience. Experimentation is a good teacher.
Click to enlarge
I am convinced they intensified Ian and then drove it into shore directly at Fort Myers. It's too much of a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Not anymore.
Speaking of coincidence, here is another reason I think this whole thing was nefarious... from a long time ago.
The Florida highway that runs down Estero Island is number 865.
8 + 6 + 5 = 19
19
The Post Office Zipcode for Fort Myers Beach, FL is 33931.
3 + 3 + 9 + 3 + 1 = 19
19
And the date the hurricane made landfall was September 28.
9/28
9 + 2 + 8 = 19
19
Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nineteen. Nineteen.2
3 19 = Destruction
1 + 9 = 10 ---> 1
1
Nothing. Isolation. Alone.
Same culprits. Same motivation...
Profit. 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰
Those we have been taught to trust are the most evil...
UPDATE, October 6, 2022...
Added the "Welcome to Georgia" picture.
UPDATE, October 8, 2022...
3 Made revisions to clarify and explain my points.
The men who were 19 in 1965 would be how old today?
76
Those who managed to survive the Vietnam War
are our present-day elders in 2022. Would those elders have been the men most likely to encourage taking up arms against evil? Were the warriors in the American population culled?
What did that war do to those would-be elders who survived? Are they still traumatized? Are they less likely to be able to provide wisdom and guidance to today's younger men? Are there fewer elder men than there would have been had the Vietnam War not happened? Was the Vietnam War a strategic ploy to minimize eventual organized resistance to tyranny in our present day?
What about the two Gulf Wars? Same thing? Those who were 19 in 1991 are now 50. Those who were 19 in 2003 are now 38. There's your leadership. Spent and exhausted.
We must think like vermin in order to understand vermin. 🐀 We must understand vermin in order to defeat them.
UPDATE, December 18, 2022...
2 The video is by Paul Hardcastle, and is called "19." It was released in 1985.
The age restriction was recently added. Hmmmm... 🤔
Renumbered the footnotes to maintain proper order.
UPDATE, May 23, 2023...
Facebook, Gage Goulding - NBC-2
My brother told me yesterday that an NBC journalist visited Fort Myers Beach (FMB) to do a follow-up story about the impact of Hurricane Ian. It gave locals an opportunity to have some national exposure to their situation.
I recently spent some time at a new "free" coffee shop in the Village of Sanford, Michigan, where a catastrophic failure of two dams thrust the local people into the national spotlight for a couple of days in May of 2020 (right in the middle of "pandemic"/lockdown/mask-wearing hysteria). That was three years ago. Those people went through what the FMB folks have recently gone through: a heart-breaking, life-changing disaster, months of mourning and clean-up, and resilient efforts to get back to normal as much as possible. They were visited by celebrities, too, and they gushed at the attention, just like the FMB folks.
Let's step back and expand our thinking. In my discussion, above, I expressed my opinion that the FMB/Hurricane Ian tragedy was a false flag event to generate huge profits for the principals of corporations engaged in government services and demolition/reconstruction. I believe the Sanford tragedy was the same, and I am prepared to back that up, although to do so here is beyond the scope of this discussion. The visits by celebrities are a key part of the scheme.
NBC is a MUNICIPAL corporation. It is a foreign-owned franchise of the Holy See (Pope), as are all corporations on the planet.
The gematria of "NBC" is: N = 14, B = 2, C = 3
14 + 2 + 3 = 19
19
Isn't that interesting, especially given my earlier discussion, above?
Bread and Circuses. Look it up. It's Roman standard operating procedure. Visits by celebrities are circuses. Their intent is to appease the victims of their crimes. Happy slaves are docile SLAVES. They don't rebel.
Sanford Dam failure, 5/20/2020
The peoples of FMB and Sanford were promised help from "the government," but in both cases the people were not impressed by what was actually provided. But what else could they do? They had no resources of their own, and "the government" was in authority, ... well, it appeared to be.
Who benefits from these situations?
Corporations?
Who loses?
Small, independent businesses?
Come-on, folks. It's time to wake up...
UPDATE, October 11, 2024...
Apparently cloud seeding plays a major role in weather modification, and it has been going on for decades...
Article 5053, International Public Notice: Pre-Planned Genocide Underway, October 6, 2024.
UPDATE, October 27, 2024...
Several days ago I found a Hurricane Helene satellite sequence that showed the center of circulation stall over the mountains while the jet stream carried the upper air off to the northeast. In real time, I remember the lower levels of moisture remaining stationary while the upper level winds moved from southwest to northeast. It was very strange.
Here is a screenshot of what I was able to find today on the same website. Notice how the track took a sharp left turn at the northwestern corner of South Carolina and the cloud circulation was far to the west...
Yesterday, I heard a discussion about how hurricanes are manipulated. [See the video in the article (#5092), starting at around 20 minutes in.] Basically, the rotational core is heated to increase the updraft. It is done using directed energy, apparently mounted on trucks in this particular case, and perhaps by satellites, too.
The following are screenshots of NOAA/NWS/Storm Prediction Center archives of the analysis pages I followed in real time.
This first one is upper level air, at about 30,000 feet. Notice how the wind barbs are depicting the upper air moving from west to east/northeast on both sides of the storm circulation, which is the "bullseye." That west-to-east flow has been the typical pattern all summer. Also note how the upper level center of storm circulation is located over the Missouri Boot Heel.
This is a screenshot of the same source at the same time, but at a lower altitude, about 10,000 feet. This is where the bulk of the moisture was located, as depicted by the green hashing. Notice that the center of circulation at this altitude is much further east, over Georgia, where the storm came ashore.
Also notice how the isobars are distorted and elongated to the northwest of the low pressure center. That means the pressure was lower on the western side of the circulation.
Something was pulling the storm to the west.
Relatively high temperatures in the center of the circulation at higher altitude would tend to create low pressure and pull lower air up and towards it.
In my opinion, the storm would probably have gone out to sea if it had been left alone.
NOAA knew the storm would stall. Here is a graphic published two days earlier when the storm was just off the Yucatan Peninsula...
