No Runts In The Litter

I am not afraid to say that I have been having dreams and visions since I was in kindergarten. I remember the first one happening while I was on the kindergarten bus being transported to Walter Zadow Public School. I didn’t know it was a vision then, but I had the same vision on numerous occasions and, being a kid, didn’t realize what I was seeing.

That being said, I still don’t always know what I’m seeing, but I’m getting better at it. I’m getting better at approaching the symbols in my dreams and the colours and the messages from God in them and I usually get the interpretation fairly quickly. Sometimes not, but we’re working on it. I am NOT a psychic or a medium. I can’t talk to your dead auntie or pick out your lottery numbers, but I get dreams and visions from God on a regular enough basis to pay attention. I have dreamed at least six houses that I lived in six months or more before the fact. I know that there’s something to it and I love that God talks to us today if we’re willing to tune the radio to His station. His station is playing all the time just like the radio stations are always playing in your town, but you don’t hear today’s top ten list on Bob FM unless you put the dial there, do you? Well… I think you get the drift.

So last weekend, at the start of my holidays, I went to a conference that changed my life because I got healed of some major ailments there. This was stuff that had been plaguing me for a long time. I believe the healing is ongoing as I keep noticing stuff changing in my body and I can’t thank God enough. I don’t like diseases and I’ve spent enough of my life in hospitals to be sick to death of them, so if I can get rid of sickness, good riddance to it!

Anyway, I was at the conference and I was enjoying the music. I was worshipping. I was singing. I sat back and closed my eyes to just appreciate the sound of hundreds of voices all singing in harmony. It was a beautiful sound.

As I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes, all of a sudden, the movie screen that I sometimes get opened up in front of me and there came a vision. It was a strange one. It made me wrinkle my forehead and go, ‘what’?

I saw an animal lying on its side. I don’t know what kind of animal it was. It could have been a dog or it could have been a pig. I know it couldn’t be a cow or a horse because they don’t lie down to feed their young.

This animal’s teats were full of milk. Like, the mama whazzit was ready to feed her litter of babies. She was sooooo full of milk and then, in came the babies and in the vision, it was like I was one of the babies. I know that’s weird, but it will make sense.

I did what I always do. “What’s that?” I asked. I heard God’s voice quite clearly saying, “There are no runts in my litter.”

It made me laugh. Like… what? What are you talking about? But, I come from the country. I do understand the way of litters. Dog litters. Cat litters. Pig litters. There is always a runt on the farm. You know what a runt is. It’s that one poor little thing that the other fat puppies/kitties/piglets shove out of the way because they’re bigger and weigh more. They get the best of the milk from the mother and the runt is left with the leftovers, the dregs, and is usually small and skinny and in real danger of dying if it doesn’t get enough food. Sometimes an animal mother will even abandon the runt.

So, God says. “There are no runts.” And in my vision, it was true. There was enough milk in that mama for all her brood. Plenty. Enough milk to give them all fat full little bellies and to make them very happy little babies.

I smiled. This was nice to know, but God spoke again and said, “You think you’re the runt.”

Huh? No! No! I don’t think that!

Yes. You do. You always reason away why I’ll heal and help every other kid in my kingdom… except you. You think I love the others more. You think I don’t have enough blessings to go around, so you’ll ‘sacrifice’ and settle for whatever you can get.

Oh-oh. I think I just got told off… it was kind even so. It wasn’t a mean scolding. Just… well… I needed to hear it. I realized that it was absolutely true. I believed God could help me. I believed God could heal me. I just didn’t think I was all that important in the ‘litter’… in the pecking order. Let Him heal some great person who is destined to change the world and I’ll just be happy sitting here in pain and suffering and waiting for Heaven and the afterlife.

You know what? That didn’t make God happy. He wasn’t interested in my willingness to sacrifice my health and wellbeing for the bigger puppies in the litter. In the vision I had, it was like he was shoving me toward the milk. He was telling me to go and get it. He was telling me there’s plenty for everyone and He is not running out. So, stop going hungry and get in there and get what you need!

“Ok. I’m so sorry for thinking like that, God. You are the best Father and You always provide the best for your children.”

Even you?

Even me.

I got healed that night of the following list of ailments:  hiatus hernia is gone; gastrointestinal reflux disease is gone; asthma is nearly completely gone - I’m having a little squeak here and there, but my friends know how often that thing almost killed me and I’m not wheezing or taking meds all the time; my digestive issues are gone. Everything is working the way it’s supposed to. No more pain. I was in so much pain in the past few months that I was crying and desperate and missing work and could hardly eat. I would fast for fear of the pain. The pain has left the building. I’m eating normally again.

So, there are no runts in the litter after all. If God will help me, then I know He will help you, so stop thinking your problems aren’t important to Him or that He’ll help everybody else… except you. His love for His children is measureless. You are loved by Him. Your problems and all the circumstances facing you are not God being angry with you or wanting to harm you. He wants to help you. Just… tell Him yes, will you? He was waiting for me to say yes and really mean it and accept that I was truly loved and not just tolerated by Him. He loves me and… even more… He likes me.

I’m not saying we don’t have stuff in our lives that needs changing. We all sport attitudes or have issues that we would like help with, but that’s the thing. He wants to help.

After what happened to me last weekend, I don’t care anymore. I don’t care who likes it or who doesn’t. I don’t care if people even laugh at me. I’m running in full throttle like a fat little greedy puppy and I… want… the… milk!!! There are NO RUNTS in God’s litter!

Letter to the Lost Generation - The Love Rant

Dear Lost Generation,

I apologize on behalf of my generation. We have failed you miserably.

When I was young, love was patient and kind. Now, love is nothing more than kissing, groping and bruising each other with little or no clothing on MTV music videos. It’s who does who and how sexy you look and then it’s over as quickly as a summer storm.

When I was young, love was not selfish and didn’t insist on its own way. It sacrificed for the greater good, for the wellbeing of others. Now, love is money and how much a person spent to buy that ring/car/video game/insert shallow material product here.

When I was young, a movie told us that love meant never having to say you’re sorry. We already knew better than that. We knew that love means saying sorry… often. It also means saying “Forgive me” AND “I forgive you.”

When I was young, love was not arrogant or puffed up. It humbly served, happy to do so because hey, when you love someone, you want to serve that person and do wonderful things for their benefit. Now, love means coming around and being all sweet and wonderful… until you get sex. Then it turns off like a tap. It’s instant like microwave food and then cools off just as quickly.

When I was young, love would never fail. It would sail rough seas. It would even argue sometimes. It would get rough, but in the end, when the dust settled, love was still there. Now, it’s cheap, “Made in Taiwan” plastic, but don’t worry. There will be another season of The Bachelor in a few months.

When I was young, love bore all things, believed all things and endured all things. We believed in those we loved. We knew they weren’t perfect, but we gave them the dignity and respect they deserved and we naturally knew that was the right thing to do when you love someone. Now, love lasts five minutes and after it’s over, you murder the character of the one you ‘loved’ on Facebook or, if you’re lucky enough to get interviewed, you do it on Dr. Phil.

When I was young, there was no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend. Now, we don’t love our friends enough to lay down carpeting for them or lend them a hand or even a buck. It’s all me me me and if you fall down, I’ll step over you, “Friend”, and be on my way.

When I was young, God was love. We were grateful for sunrises and sunsets and trees and flowers and beautiful things in creation. Even those who were a little naughty among us – you know, that drank a little too much or got into mischief, even those ones would acknowledge and thank God for their daily food and knew He was loving. Now, God isn’t love. He isn’t even there. Apparently, all this stuff happened as a weird, ridiculously impossible accident and, due to Christopher Hitchens’ legitimately negative experiences with religious people and politics, not only is God not love, He isn’t even great.

When I was young, love conquered all and covered a multitude of sins. The person we loved might be an utter jerk, but they were our utter jerk and they were accepted, fed, cared for solely on the basis of the fact that we loved them and could overlook a few faults. Now, love is for those who can afford Botox and Jenny Craig’s diet plan. One ounce or wrinkle this way or that way, and the umpires on America’s Top Whatever scream, “Yooooooooou’re out!”

When I was young, love was a commandment. Love God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself. Sometimes the love was sappy and huggy and sometimes it was a kick in the pants to set you back on the straight and narrow, but either way, it made you a better person. It was a prescription to ward off heart-sickness and loneliness. It meant laughter and squabbles and having to buy an extra box of popsicles so that every kid in your back yard (who are all these kids playing with mine anyway?) got one. It meant sometimes having to have the kid on your ball team who couldn’t hit the ball worth a darn. It meant sharing and lending. It meant helping to build the neighbour’s barn when it burned. It meant making a casserole for the neighbour who just had a baby or lost her husband.

Yes. Lost Generation. These things really existed. They aren’t myths like Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster.

Of all the things that have gone extinct, I think I miss real love the most. It wasn’t some weak, flighty, passing craze. It was rough, tough, gritty and sweet. It’s what we need to stop all these kids from shooting up their classmates, doing drugs and committing suicide. It’s a companion to faith and hope, which we forgot to dole out to this generation too. We threw those things out when we decided our parents’ way of doing things wasn’t cool.

Can we get it back? You betcha. And I look forward to seeing a new generation of dissatisfied youngsters rising up to say, “Enough of this crap! I want something real!” Enough of this fluffy froufrou "love". The tingly feelings are great and they’re an expression of love, but real love starts on the days when those feelings aren’t there. The feelings come and go. They go up and down. They depend on moods and stress and hormones. They can wax and wane like the moon.

Love is a decision. Love is an act of your will. It rides out the low tide knowing that the high tide will return.

If we want it back. If we want the real love that goes the distance, it will cost us nothing and it will cost us everything.

How do we get it back? It starts off small. An act of kindness here. A good word there. A pat on the back. A smile. A prayer. The setting aside of grudges. Letting somebody else have a turn. Taking a second to stop and think that the guy who just cut you off on the highway might have just lost his job or received news that his wife's got cancer. Just cutting each other some slack instead of flipping the bird or letting the f bomb fly every time there's the slightest irritation.

It’s not that simple, you say. I say. Oh yes it is. The sooner we realize that each of us are not all by ourselves living in individual little bubbles, the sooner we can go back and find where we dropped the axe head. It will come floating right up to the surface of the water where we can scoop it up and start back where we made the mistake of throwing love away in the first place.

Will we do it?

I hope. Oh… do I hope!