My Birthday is this Friday- Feb 27.
I will be 64.
Now I must tell you, that sounds OLD to me.
These aging hands have been signing for a LONG time. They have interpreted many different subjects to a variety of audiences, but the message has always been delivered from the love I feel in my heart for them and for my Lord.
Our Church has been reading through the Bible, studying and preaching on the Old Testament now for two years. Each Sunday I teach my adult DEAF Sunday school lesson from the reading assigned to us that week. Each Sunday Pastor (my hubby) preaches on the assigned reading in the morning and evening sermon, and I interpret them for the DEAF. Yesterday we did the Book of Amos.
Every week I am "preaching" hard at them like the prophets of old relentlessly preaching to the Israelites. God would give each prophet a strong message of what will happen if the people continue to worship idols and neglect HIM. God begs them to come back to HIM and HE will give them renewed Life. But the people over and over and over and over reject Him.
After weeks and months of this heavy "preaching" - God is really letting me have a glimpse of what it must have felt like to the Prophets and even to GOD.
Week after week I "preach" and get in their faces about: "Stop playing Church, fall in love with Jesus". and yet it FEELS LIKE the message falls on "Deaf Ears."
I told my husband and I am really tired of "preaching" this gloom and doom stuff! I cannot wait until the NEW TESTAMENT! My husband calmly said, "Now we have some idea of how frustrated the prophets must have been....and how GOD FEELS."
Lately I have wanted to find another Sheltie dog to join our family. I feel our neutered male sheltie needs a playmate....that is Biblical right! lol We don't have the funds for a puppy costing $1,600. so been looking at other options. I have suffered rejection after rejection as I call and find myself second or third in line. All I want is a female Sheltie dog to add to our family for us to love on. The Florida Sheltie rescues make it almost impossible to locate a sheltie for sale. They have a list a mile long of demands to meet before you can welcome one in your home. REALLY??? Anyway, I have FELT the frustration of rejection over and over. It feels like they are rejecting ME, and all I want is to offer a loving home to a young adult female sheltie.
So when I was teaching on Amos yesterday, who was a Shepherd (may have had a sheltie dog or two ha ha), I began to more clearly understand what GOD was doing in my life.
God asked Hosea to marry a prostitute so he could experience what it felt like to love someone only to have them seek the love of another. God said, you will FEEL what I feel over and over as my people reject MY love.
Amos was just an ordinary man, working as a shepherd and a fig picker, when the LORD asked him to tell the same message of REPENT or ELSE!
So as I interpret the same hard message week after week, hour after hour...and see a light impact on changed lives, I ask God to keep me faithful to HIM...no matter how it FEELS, or how hard it is week after week to "get in faces" with a strong message of repent.
The New Testament is coming!
Oh how we need a Savior!
Thank You, JESUS!
