Month: November 2022

Bible Study

Spiritual Blindness

The Carpenter’s Daughter

Growing up in the 80’s everyone wanted a Nissan Pulsar w/ the flip up lights. They were cool and futuristic. As time went on, people noticed a design flaw with the headlamps. They were the ones that would flip up when you turned them on. Over time, one would unfortunately remain stuck in the upright position. You drove around town with these cars essentially “winking” at you. This flashback came to mind yesterday after traveling to my sister and brothers-in-law’s home for Thanksgiving. I recently had eye surgery, AGAIN. I’ve lost count of the number of surgeries that I’ve had in my eyes from detached retina’s, cataract surgery, scar tissue removal, oil bubble removal. A habit that I’ve started because of these surgeries is closing my one eye, essentially using my “one good eye” to look at things. People notice that I squint or only have the one open. I’m walking around looking like a Nissan Pulsar, unknowingly winking at people. I’m really just trying to see out of whichever eye is working at the moment. One the trip here, and after asking several times if it was ok to fly, my surgeon assured that I would be fine. We boarded our flight out of Baltimore and after reaching maximum altitude it happened. I knew immediately my eye pressure was not right. When you have the problems that I’ve had, you know a thing or two about eyes. The feelings I was having, the feeling not only in my eye but the cold, clammy sweats. I was going to be sick. I didn’t want to do it, but if I did, I would probably feel better. I leaned forward, looking down and resting my head against the seat in front of me. It was all I could think of to do. A posture I had to do after my first detachment surgery, lying face down. I thought, maybe this would relieve some of the pressure. My wonderful husband was trying to comfort me, bringing me cold rags. I did essentially get sick, and I don’t know if that made me feel better, the leaning forward, or that we were descending by this time for landing. I was just happy to be feeling better and putting feet on the ground. During this time, I was also doing a lot of praying. “Lord, please protect my eye, get us there safely. Help relieve this pain.”

The Lord put this one my heart to share with all of you because as I suffer through temporary blindness, I can’t help but hurt for those who walk around spiritually blind every day. It reminded me of the story of Paul before he became Paul on the road to Damascus. If you’re unfamiliar with this story, you can read the full story in Acts 9. Saul was against Christianity and was persecuting early Christians. He had gone to the high priest asking for permission to arrest anyone to bring back to Jerusalem. The Lord shined a bright light down from Heaven asking him why he was persecuting him. Saul and his men just stood there astonished, hearing a voice but seeing no one. When he stood up and opened his eyes he couldn’t see. The Lord had told him to go, and he would tell him what he needed to do. The Lord had made Saul (Paul) blind. Ananias ended up restoring Saul’s sight, filling him with the Holy Spirit and converting him.

Again, you can read the entire story in Acts 9. I read and heard this story many times, but it wasn’t until now that I could put it into context. Whether Paul was literally or not, it doesn’t matter when it comes down to the meaning of the story. Paul might not have been able to physically see with his eye, but his heart was blind. He didn’t want to believe in the Lord. Sometimes, it takes a circumstance in our life to enlighten us. The Lord everyday uses any way possible to bring us closer to him. To fully rely on him. He doesn’t want us to be spiritually blind and wander aimlessly. The Lord lights a path onto feet. Go to him, lean on him and let him open your eyes.

Photo by Monica Turlui: https://www.pexels.com/photo/unrecognizable-woman-with-blindfold-and-blooming-roses-7218408/

Advertisement
Journey of Faith

An Open Heart

The Carpenter’s Daughter

Can a person be too nice? Hmm. When you enter into the prison system, one of the first things that takes place is you need to take a bunch of evaluations. They schedule a day when you and a whole group of other newbies go to a classroom with the staff Phycologist to work on these packets. They include different questions, containing different scenarios, some have photos containing 2 or 4 in a group. You need to choose the one that doesn’t fit. Those kids of tests. It’s funny as I sit here, one of the photos comes to mind. It’s a baby changing a tire. They were illustrations, not actual photos. Included in this group of packets was the 300+ question one that the crazy roommate stated she was not completing because she didn’t have time to study. Several weeks after completing these evaluations, we’re then called down to the phycologists office to found out what they found out. Well, I was told that I am too nice. I’m a people pleaser. I didn’t know how to take that information. I mean, aren’t we taught to be nice, be kind, care about others? One of the things that my husband said to me when I found out I was going to prison, was that he prayed it wouldn’t harden me. So now armed with this new information, what am I supposed to do? Ms. Gates was nice. That was her name. She went on to explain to me that people may “try” to take advantage of me when I get out into general population. She also explained that because of my age (MY AGE! I’m not old), that people most likely will leave me alone. I’m just sitting there staring at her, taking this all in. Up until this point, all of us were new inmates. Some had been incarcerated before either on the county level or some had been “upstate” in the past. I realized that I was being prepared to go out into the general population. Up until this point, we were sheltered. We lived in our own separate pod, behind out own separate gate, with our own separate yard. We didn’t leave for meals, we only left for appointments throughout the campus or commissary. All appointments had to be walked to. It didn’t matter if it was rain, shine, freezing or hotter than you know what. We walked and you had 5 minutes to get there. It was called “move time”. You were only allowed to “move” during the announced move times, unless you had a pass. There were times when there was “cease movement”. That meant, it didn’t matter if you had a pass or not, your butt didn’t move. These occurred during shift changes, count, emergencies or if there was some other event going on in the campus that they didn’t want us getting in the way. Anyhow, back to being too nice. I had learned somewhat in county how to negotiate the lending, borrowing and barter system. Upstate, it the methods are pretty much the same but at a higher risk. People there have no craps to give in some of their situations. If you know what I mean. I learned quickly that the only people I would lend, barter or share with were my roommates or people that I actually considered friends. Anyone outside of that group, I would evaluate them as best of possible to see what their angle was. In prison, everyone has an angle. Someone comes to the door, asks if you or anyone in your room has such and such they can “come up off of”. I learned that I had to lie sometimes and say, “no, I didn’t”. Then, I later realized that I wasn’t lying. I didn’t have it to give or lend because I needed it. So, by giving it away or “selling” it, then I would be out. So, I was learning how to negotiate this “being too nice” thing after all. There’s actually rules that you are NOT allowed to lend and borrow. I explained this before, however it’s a very necessary process of being in prison. Our facility was 2 weeks behind when we would order commissary. The other facilities that I was in (Muncy and Phoenix), you would order one week and get your stuff the following week. Cambridge, you would order and wouldn’t get that order for 2 weeks later. This is one of those things that was decided by the lady that ran the commissary department. It’s just one of the many small things that didn’t make sense to me. Shouldn’t this be consistent across all facilities? You would think something small like this shouldn’t matter, but it does. Waiting 2 weeks for cough medicine you need now doesn’t help when you need it NOW. Therefore, you sometimes need to go out and start asking around your unit to see if someone is able to sell you a bottle, give you a teaspoon or whatever. If someone came to me asked me for 2 Tylenol and I knew they weren’t someone that asks EVER, I might be inclined to just give them 2. If I see you around the unit asking for stuff constantly, well then you might be outta luck. This is how things worked. You gained a reputation in prison and even if you moved from one unit to another, people knew your reputation. When moves took place, you can best believe that people were up at the officer’s desk asking who was moving where. Who was going in what rooms and if it was someone that you knew was a thief-All hell would ensue. Many officers wouldn’t disclose the move sheet until the morning of for this reason. During an emergency move off out unit, I saw a lady get refused 2 times from being allowed to enter a room because of her reputation of stealing. The other inmates in the room would guard the doorway and YOU WILL NOT enter. You would think that staff wouldn’t allow this, but they would keep reassigning her to a room until there was no fuss. Your reputation can go the other way too. I ended up being forced to move because someone in a different room was stealing. They wanted to switch me to get this thief out of that room. Now my current roommates weren’t happy because that meant I was leaving for a now accused person that steals. Well, before I even knew what was happening, I heard my friend Bernadett at the offer’s desk demanding that she wanted to know, “where they were putting me”. The officer on duty that day was an ass. He was cocky and loved to just agitate people. He was nice, but he was just a pain in the ass that liked to cause problems then get pissed when inmates would push back. Anyhow, she was wanted to know where they were moving me. He asked her what business of hers was it. She said to him, “because she’s my friend and you aren’t sticking her just anywhere that’s why!”. I love Bernadett. Her and Tiffany were two ladies that I meet in C unit when I first got to Cambridge. Tiffany told me on day one I was going home. This was how my time was while I was incarcerated. People knew my reputation, they knew I was respectful, minded my own business and I wasn’t afraid to speak up for myself. I came across as quiet but poke the bear and I will growl back. The easiest thing though is that when someone is barking in your face, I would just walk away. When they would say something about you walking away, I would just tell them that I didn’t have time for their crap. People would purposely try to annoy someone else I think out of boredom. Also, living with all women meant someone was always on their period. Yeah, bet you didn’t think of that! So, while I was labeled as “being too nice” it was the beginning of learning how I ended up here in the first place. A lesson that I wish I’d have learned before it was too late.

Female hands giving red heart
Bible Study

Hexes, Curses and Attachments

The Carpenter’s Daughter

My husband and I have always loved to travel. Like many of us that go on vacations, we also like to pick up a souvenir or memento to bring back home. These small treasures become little reminders of the fun we had, a visual piece that can instantly take us back to that moment. As we grow in our Christian faith and dig deeper into ways that Satan and demonic energy gains access to us through open gateways, it amazed me the things that I never would have thought of before. Many other countries have different believes than we are used to. There are in fact, many religions and beliefs right here in our own country. I don’t know how many of you remember the episode on The Brady Bunch, when the entire family went to Hawaii? The kids were doing what all kids do and they ended up finding this tiki statue. After several misfortunes, they soon realized that a curse was attached to this thing. As a kid or even maybe some of you as an adult might scoff thinking that where I’m going with this is hog wash. Google if you will, but you will soon find plenty of sites across the internet stating items to NEVER bring home from certain areas. Here are a few examples:

Hawaiian Lava Rocks: It’s not exactly illegal to take one of these natural elements from Hawaii, but tradition says that you could anger the Hawaiian goddess of fire and incur Pele’s Curse. The modern explains says that if you remove a rock from the Hawaiian Islands, you’ll have bad luck until it has been returned (yes, this was the premise of a very special “Brady Bunch” episode). Don’t laugh it off — hundreds of tourists return rocks to Hawaii through the mail every year.

God also gave us clear instructions to never worship any other god or put one before him. you could knowingly or unknowingly be bringing home a replica of a god or idol that another culture or religion worships. It’s been found that some factories that produce these trinkets “pray” over them or quote some incantation over them before selling them to us travelers waiting to spend our money. One idol in particular that I never put together, until another Christian pointed it out to me was the Budda’s inside many Asian restaurants, salons. He’s sitting there, looking all innocent. He actually isn’t Budda at all, but he is a deity that is worshipped. Many times, you will notice that they are sitting in an almost alter like setting. So, when we purchase items from these locations, are we then paying homage to this jolly looking man? (Read more information here: https://people.howstuffworks.com/that-fat-jolly-fella-isnt-buddha.htm).

I don’t know if we should stop buying these items all together, or perhaps when we enter into these establishments or purchase these items, we can use the authority that God has given us to bind whatever is attached to them and ask the Lord to deal with it however he seems fit. We can then loose Gods will, love and protection over all items we own and bring into our home. If you are unfamiliar with binding & loosing-you can read about it in Matthew chapter 16. (Matthew 16:19: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”    You need to educate yourselves regarding the authority that the Lord has given to us and start using it! Not only does this apply to items or nick knacks we bring home, but we need to discern who we are allowing into our home as well. People also can have “things” attached to them. So, the next time when someone comes to your door, and you get “that feeling”. It might be the Holy Spirit trying to tell you that the threshold is far enough! Start evaluating these feelings, pray to the Lord and ask him for wisdom.

I’ve known for a while that my son’s also have the gift of discernment. It’s fun as they get older, seeing them unknowingly utilizing this gift. Today, I had a conversation with my one son about something he said to me yesterday. I received a gift a few years ago a bracelet with beads from Africa. I almost forgot that I had it. I was going through some things and stumbled across it yesterday. I asked my son if he would like to have it to put away. he looked it over and said, “no I’m good”. I said, “why, what’s the matter?”. I could tell by his response that it was a normal, no thank you. He said to me, “mom, I don’t know what they did to make that thing, but it’s made out of some animal hide. The hide of an animal I don’t know of what, and whatever other voodoo crap they had going on when it was made”. I didn’t think anything about it at the time and laid it on top of my desk. Today, he came back, and I told him that I thought about what he said and that I’m proud of him for making that discernment. He said, what do you mean? I then explained to him the importance of what he noticed immediately that I failed in doing so. I had this picture of this little African girl making these cute bracelets to sell to support her family. He received a whole other vision. This is why it’s so important that Christians share and support each other. We are here to advance God’s kingdom. What one may fail to see, another can surely turn on the light. If this wasn’t enough, I pulled this bracelet down from where I sat it yesterday. I jokingly said, I agree it could be cursed or something, I should pray over it to cast it out. I went to lay it back in its spot and a picture it was next to fell and almost hit me in the head. We both looked at each other. I said, well obviously something isn’t happy that it’s getting its eviction notice! I immediately prayed over it, but I’m still considering getting rid of it. Have you ever had anything like this happen with an item you purchased or were given as a gift?

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/asian-figure-stone-asia-50993/

Journey of Faith

Fed up!

The Carpenter’s Daughter

When I became incarcerated, I vowed that I would bring to light misconceptions about the criminal justice system as well as incarceration. Once, I came home I joined different groups and follow different people on social media to become even more aware. It’s obvious that as I watch and listen, that many are FED UP! People are starting to realize that regardless of whatever crime you committed that you’re still a human being. You can be punished for a crime and still be treated humanely. One of my guilty pleasures is watching Tik Tok. I came across a vlogger recently @djwhatchusaid360. What caught my attention was that he was employed at the Beaver County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania. He was a Corrections Officer who while employed there, tried numerous times to report abuse, neglect, corruption by staff to no avail. The result of his persistence let to his dismissal from his job because he was unwilling to “play by their rules”. The way he explained it was that staff fit into categories. You cared but didn’t want to bring attention to yourself because you had a family and needed the job, or you were just holding on until retirement so you could cash in on your pension. You could also be one of the ones that neither cared one way or another and got off on being given the “authority” to do whatever you wanted to inmates because there would be no consequences for doing it. Who was going to tell? Admittingly, the cameras didn’t record. The only “eyes in the sky” was another officer who sat in the control booth, who could look away when necessary. Regardless of how someone might feel about an individual for a crime they committed doesn’t give us permission as society to allow the mistreatment of them at will. We can’t be in shock in awe on one side, but then consider it to be ok on this end. How doesn’t that even make sense? Have we lost all of our compassion or care for life in general? One of the things that was also shocking to me when I became incarcerated was the amount of people with mental disabilities being housed there. Many mental hospitals were closed many years ago because the abuse, neglect and illegal testing done on the patients. This left those needing special housing to go into group homes, back to family or if they were criminally insane-they’d be locked up in a prison. I can tell you that a prison facility has no care or ability to correctly care for these patients. Most of the time they can’t live with others because of safety concerns. Certain medications cannot be prescribed because of the risk of the meds leaking out into the prison population. Staff is not properly trained to handle these inmates. Many times, these inmates end up in the hole because of acting out or not being compliant. Even, those who aren’t a danger and can live with general population struggle. Their needs are different than other inmates. Unfortunately, they end up getting stuck there because they are viewed as a problem inmate. They aren’t so much as a “problem” as they aren’t able to cope or understand so they act out. They aren’t medicated properly, nor receiving the right care. Ironically, the men’s facilities in PA have specific prisons for those with mental disabilities. The women’s facilities have specific “units” for those needing different housing. While this might look good on the surface, I again assure you that it’s just for show. I applaud this gentleman for speaking his truth. There are many good corrections officer’s out there who realize that they can make a difference. They realize that part of their job is to be a mentor and to encourage those incarcerated to do better. They can either help or be part of the problem. Like I mentioned in my last post, what’s done in the dark does come to the light. People are fed up and speaking out, I pray the right people listen.

Photo by Anna Shvets: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-people-holding-hands-4672719/

Bible Study

Your Inner Voice

The Carpenter’s Daughter

1 John 2:20-27 But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things.

Some call it a gut feeling, intuition. Call it whatever you want, but I say it’s the Holy Spirit giving me unction to make a choice. Last night I taught an online Bible study and one of the things we talked about was choices. In fact, that was the theme. Making good choices. How do we know we’re making good choices or not? The first question I had to ask myself when preparing this Bible study, was, “who am I to be instructing someone how to make good choices when I didn’t do it myself?” The Holy Spirit quickly told me that I am the perfect person to teach others about making better choices. Sometimes we allow other things to influence our decisions. We don’t want to let someone down, we don’t want to look like a loser, or it quite frankly might be an easy out. Whatever our reason is, we should be consulting the Lord before we consult anyone else. Eventually, the decisions that we make will affect us now or later. It’ll just depend on who’s voice your listening to when you make it.

Luke 12:3

Bible Study

Happy Halloween

The Carpenter’s Daughter

Halloween is a controversial holiday between Christians. I was raised that it was about having fun, trick or treating and that was about it. We never looked into any deeper meaning than what it was at face value. The history of Halloween goes back to ancient Ireland according the The History Channel (read more here: https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween). Halloween or All Hallows Eve was a festival to ward off evil spirits. I’m not sure where it came into play that it was a holiday to worship satan and his minions. We all do know, however that there are cults that so practice this as part of their beliefs. As Christians we sometimes get too caught up in details such as Halloween but fail to look around us at the satanic symbolism being put right out in the open. Even some of the phrases used every day, have roots in the occult. What we must ask ourselves, is this an accident or is there a more sinister reason that these symbols keep appearing. I want to share some with you, and you be the judge.

Diva: Maria Carey, Whitney Houston, and female artists of all genres have been called a DIVA. We should NOT be calling women or anyone a diva. I have read what I’m about to tell you many times, but I’ll reference “The Power of the Pen” – https://www.thepowerofthepen.org/new-page-77 for further reading. Diva in Latin means “Deus”, which means devil. Diva is short for divination. You are asking to be worshipped and the Lord has specifically told us not to place any other gods before him.

So, you are probably thinking, “why do I need to know this?” The Bible tells us that we need to know who we are dealing with. In Mark 5:9- Jesus came across a demon and specifically asked it, “What is your name? The demon responded, I am Legion, for we are many.” In Luke, Chapter 11 we are introduced to “the strongman”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Strong_Man). So, if we are to know who we are dealing with, and if we are to know their name, then shouldn’t we know who’s on the hitlist? If a specific person was bothering you, you would tell them, “Hey so and so, you’re bugging me-get away from me!”. We need to do the same thing when satan is attacking us, our loved ones, and our property. A book that I highly recommend is by John Eckhardt, “The Demon Hitlist”. You can pick up a copy on Amazon or your local bookstore. (I’ve read the hard copy, but I found this here: https://www.operationezra.com/uploads/1/0/4/4/10446233/demon_hit_list_-_eckhardt.pdf). Dr. Jerry and Carol Robeson, also wrote a book called, “Strongman’s his name, what is his game”. (https://docviewer.xdocs.net/view.php). Here is another book from John Eckhardt (file:///C:/Users/Jodie/Downloads/Prayers-That-Rout-Demons-John-Eckhardt-Christiandiet.com_.ng_.pdf).

I Corinthians 12:1 tells us not to be ignorant of spiritual things. 2 Corinthians 2:11 also tells us to not be ignorant of satan’s schemes so that he can’t have any advantage over us. I know this isn’t a subject people like to discuss. The world is getting uglier and uglier. As Christians, we need to be on guard and put on our full armor. I pray that each of you reading this will take the time to read the links that I’ve shared. Investigate on your own. Pray Psalms 91 over you and your loved ones daily. Be wise to the schemes of the enemy.

Photo by Alexa Popovich: https://www.pexels.com/photo/strongman-breaking-burning-bricks-with-hand-9510503/