This is a Blessed day. I was healed of a melanoma mole in 2010, and since then have been wondering why? I didn't want to get healed, I wanted to move on to the other side (Heaven). For six years I've felt a heavy responsibility to find the why, for why I'm here? Today God showed me the why, and you can't imagine what a relief this is for me. It was never about me, and what I want, the problem was I could never find God's purpose for what HE wanted. I've been a lost ship out on the sea for six years. But TODAY I saw the lighthouse. No doubt about it. People are going to be surprised when they see the real me kick in. Because I have 40K on twitter doesn't mean I'm some pide-pipper that's going save the world. Today I felt God say in my spirit, you're not on life support anymore, you're now the support for someone life. I'm a survivor. I'm The fullback that knocks defensive ends over for the halfback. I'm one of the two men holding Moses arms up in the heat of the battle.  Since 2010 FINDING the lighthouse was 75% of the problem. I might be a few miles out on the ocean but watch me, even a tsunami won't stop me.  I'm going to surprise some people that misjudged me, but that's OK. You're going to see the real me show up. Devil, you may as well sit your sorry behind down cuz you know you beat now.  God's going to do it. Hello, 2017!

I'am convinced that most of the saints were religious dropouts from societies that were going nowhere. Jesus reign of God was telling us that culture as we've created it is on a track toward self-destruction and emptiness.
  Finding God and losing the self are the same thing; we don't really come by it naturally or choose it of ourselves. Faith is always God's thing. It seems to be the only way the Lord can draw us into a new viewpoint, a new point from which to view the life that is larger than life.

 >Fr. Richard Rohr<

When twitter came on the sceen ever

God has given all of us different personalities and characters from birth. our environment, our religion, our education all play A roll in what do in life but the core of who we are,  the type A. or B. personality will always be there. As Christians it's hard to pin Jesus down to any type A. or type B. personality because He could be both.  The Jesus who trashed the buyers and sellers in the temple was not the same Jesus that said, he that has sinned not let him be the first to throw a stone at the adulterous woman. But if Jesus was meek and humble I don't think He was a type A. personality.
The point is He was free to be both depending on what kind of situation He was confronting and still be the Son of God and love God the Father. The love for God was consistent but His temperament was not. The confirmation name I was confirmed with was John. But I can't remember which one?....John the baptist or John the beloved who rested his head on Jesus chest. The two of them were as opposite as you can get.  John the baptist lived in the desert. He was the one who saw the Pharisees coming and basically called them a bunch of snakes and accused them of living in sin. John saw no repentance in them at all. You can't preach grace and then leave and live like the Pharisees which is we all know what they were doing. >Bishop Noel Jones<  I don't think the Pharisees came to john for repentance. I think they came to check John out and take notes. Deep down inside the Pharisees were always insecure and jealous around Jesus and John and probably some others too. Jesus and John irritated and angered the Pharisees just for who they were. Jesus wasn't fond of them either. But Jesus, John the baptist, and John the beloved as different as their personalities were ALL loved God and that's the point I'm trying to make. I admire people who can always keep things positive but......(I'am going to step on some toes) It's not biblical because we all know all of us can find ourselves in the temple or the desert or at peace with Jesus and back to the temple again. And we shouldn't deny, hide, or stuff those feeling down inside us and say there not there because there going to come out sooner or latter one way or the other. They will. Jesus was in complete control of His emotions 24/7 and we know God isn't a robotic machine. He got angry.  He got angry and there was no sin in that anger. He was angry and sinned not.  John the baptist the greatest man born of a woman is best known for baptising Jesus........and his temper. But their love for God never waivered.  Christians and much of the church today are unbalanced.  Christianity is so far over to the I'm ok and your ok Christianity or the hell fire and brimstone Christianity that we've lost touch of the most important ingredient, knowing God's will and the faith to carry it out.  Keep it upbeat and happy Bishop or you'll lose congregants and that means losing money. That's called religious politics. That's called running YOUR show. And you will slowly smother the Holy Spirit. These mega churches aren't bubbling over with the Spirit. There bubbling over with pride and arrogance. Do you think the Holy Spirit is going to stay in your church because you tell it to?  God is going to show you something your not going to like. He doesn't care if we're A. or B. or how many tiles we have. He cares about faith, love, and obedience. The road to hell is paved with good works. Every bishop or preacher will tell you the annointing is moving in their church. Have you heard anyone say otherwise? Repentance isn't easy but Hell is harder. If I know I'v offended someone I leave my gift at the altar and man up I show people I'm not a hypocrite and practice what I preach and I ask for forgiveness and take responsibility for my own actions. I don't act like a little boy and tell people I'm not perfect and that God is still working on me. That record wore out 20 years ago. Have you grown since then Bishop? You who accuse others of having too much pride do you have pride?  You keep surprising me with how immature you really are. What you do next will be a turning point in your life.  You're at a crossroad Bishop. You're pride has backed you up into a corner. And what you do next has nothing to do with me. This is your decision. I made mine a long time ago.

My family & friends know when I'm being serious or not. They know when I'm saying something tongue and cheek and when I'm being real. They get it. Most of them do but some don't. They don't pickup when I'm tweeting things in a humorist off key kind of way. That's not a dig or criticizing them. They just don't it and I get that. I'll post tweets about how 'humble' Donald Trump is and people think I'm serious. I tweeted one yesterday and I got tweets telling me I'm crazy if I think Trump is a humble guy da da da etc. In my mind I'm thinking this is so over the top that people have to know I'm not serious, but they don't. I'm halfway serious and that's what makes them funny. Kind of a hardy har, har thing. Normally I don't care what people think about what I post unless the misconstrued joke is hurting someone. Then I do care. People tell me my humor can be too dry whatever that means. It doesn't matter to me if it's dry or not unless I might be hurting someone. My humor might be dry but my heart is still soft. The only thing I can do is remove the tweets and apologize, and I do. Some things seem to be a do not enter zone and I'll respect that. If you read a tweet of mine and it's so over the top and you're thinking...this guys nuts....is he serious?  There's a very good chance I'm Not serious.  

When I get to heaven, the 1st. question I'm going to ask Jesus is why do you allow so much suffering to continue in the world?  Whenever I think of my youngest brother Joe,  I get a lump in my throat. Even to this day I have to stop typing and clear my eyes sometimes because they get too blurry & can't see the keys.  My brother died in 1994.  Nothing can replace the piece of him I had in my heart.  He was the apple of my Dad's eye and was the youngest boy out of 7 brothers, all one year apart from each other. He never smoked or drank or got into drugs like the rest of us did and he kind of restored the Hedstrom name for my Father and mother because he got them off the hook when they could say,   don't blame us for what the rest of the boys do.  We know how to raise good kids, look at Joe and Ann.   I think there was a part of Joe that felt  because he didn't go to the same river parties we did or hang around the same people we did he didn't feel like an equal to the rest of the brothers. But he could have partied and went down that road if he wanted to. We would have welcomed him but he never did.  The world  in the 1960's-70's was different. Everybody turned on back then (Got high)  You were either a jock, a head or a redneck.  The heads got high and the jocks didn't, and the red necks were red necks.  In school or out of school whenever I saw someone I knew was a jock I'd think....man get it together dude.  You're all screwed up living in la la, land.  Step up and join the real world and live life the way it was meant to be lived.  We just couldn't relate to people on that level. I never viewed Joe like that. I lived with him. He knew what was going on and in hind sight he was smarter than all of us. We didn't know that but he did.  In the 60's-70's violence wasn't cool either, anyone who was into that was a red-neck.   We were "mellowed out" and rejected the society we were living in. I was in a band and I thought I'd be doing for the rest of my life, but the lifestyle I was living would change dramatically in a couple of  years.  God had other plans for me. Lets just say God lifted up the rose colored glasses I was wearing and I saw the world for what it was.  All this peace and love was just sex, drugs and rock & roll.  It wasn't real love and we weren't going to change the world.  All the mellowed out hippies were just fooling themselves.  I knew everyone of us would have to see the real world and what's in it for ourselves and we did.  Financial loss, sickness, suicide,  Fatal Alcoholism, drug overdoses, murder,  all of that would visit one of us sooner or later. But the hardest thing we have to face in life is death. The death of a close loved one will take wind out of your sails. Especially when it comes right out of the blue and makes no sense at all.  My brother Joe had only been married for a one year to a girl from Hawaii. He was only 33 and he had his whole life in front of him.  He bought a new home and everything was good until Oct. 28th 1994. I got a knock on my door and two of my brothers were standing there and I knew something us up. Neither one of them wanted to tell me what happened. And then I heard Berny say,  Joe died!........I couldn't believe what I just heard. It seemed like time stopped.  I thought for sure I was dreaming this. This couldn't be happening.  Joe was the youngest of 7 brothers.  We were all born one year apart from each other so it was like this special tribe we had.  But Joe was special to all of us.  I used to ask him if anyone at school was picking on him and he always said no.  I was ready to make sure it stayed that way.  Joe and my sister Ann were spoiled by my parents but I didn't care. I didn't want them to go through what I did so I never rocked the boat. My dad was close to Joe and vise versa.  I've only seen my Father cry twice.  Once at my grandma Hedstrom's funeral. (His Mother)  And 30 years later at Joe's funeral.  I felt bad for my dad.  He put his heart and soul into Joe and like I say, they were close. I remember my Father looking down at Joe in the casket and I was thinking how can a loving God let this happen?  Why out of all of us 7 did He let this happen to Joe? This part of life I'll never understand. When I see some of the things that go on in the world today my blood boils. This subject tests my Christian faith more than anything else. I don't have an answer for people that ask me these things.  That's what I tell them.  I tell them I don't know. I don't pretend to have an answer for them either. When ever I think about this subject a little voice whispers in my ear...What about Jesus? I Don't want to hear that whisper in my ear right now. I'am trying to understand how a loving God can let little children be beheaded because their of their Christian faith? In my mind I'm thinking, God, you made a mistake when you created us. Man is capable of too much evil on this earth. Stop and start over. If you take a step back and think about it that's what He did at the cross. He gave us another chance at a new life.  How did God let Jesus go through what He did without intervening?.....I have no idea.   But aren't you glad the Son of God came through for us?  Think of where you'd be today if He hadn't gone through what He did for you and I?  God works in mysterious ways. but in spite of all that I learned to trust Him. I'm not going to walk away from the Christian faith because there's a side of God I don't understand. I had a friend who did that very thing in 1987. One day right out of the blue she said if God was a loving God the world would be in the condition it's in.  I could never do that. I'v seen too many unexplainable things happen to do that. And although there unexplainable, they all line up with the word of God. The bible is another trap the enemy will try and mess you up with.   I know what I know and no one will change that. I believe in salvation for the world through Jesus Christ by faith for whomever will come and surrender their lives to Him. I don't have to find the answers to the side of the character of God I don't understand. We can get tied up in the things we don't understand and you just end up with more questions. Questions about why God is the way He is are pointless. suffering and destruction and evil are here today. Don't let those things keep you away from loving God. Do what you can for people and follow the golden rule to the best of your ability because if we're honest we all fall short of that one From time to time.    
     >Rev.11:15<              

Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.  []Mark 9:24[]  That's one of my favorite bible verses in the New Testament because it shows us we don't need this superhuman faith for God to answer Prayer.  Have you ever been praying for something heavy and you Think you're praying with complete faith but when the prayer is answered you're over-joyed with a bit of surprise?  You thought you had complete faith when you were praying but when the prayer is answered your response tells you otherwise.  But God is a good God.  Mark 9:24 shows us we don't need 100% faith in the things we're praying for.  When we pray thy will be done, we're leaving a little bit of wiggle room for prayer to go either way and that takes pressure off of us.  We're honoring God's will above our will.  He's going to answer prayers presented to Him that way before He answers the prayer of someone saying, I believe it, so that settles it. Period!  That's not a prayer, that's a demand. We don't stand on God's word as tho He's under our feet and we're calling the shots by quoting scripture verses.  God want's us to talk to Him.  We forget that we CAN twist God's arm a little bit but with respect and humility.  Lot pleading for more time before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah  is just one example of someone twisting God's arm or for God to reconsider what He was about to do.  God knew who was in the city. He didn't need Lot to remind Him who was still in there.  Lot touched God just enough with his desperate plea that God answered Lot and waited.  God is asking us to talk to Him.  That's what the parable of the widow and dishonest judge is all about.  It's a perfect example of spiritual warfare. Satan knows He can wear us out if he keeps standing in the way, keeps harassing us, keeps throwing a monkey wrench into our lives anyway he can until we fold and throw in the towel.  BUT,......If we keep getting back up no matter how hard the devil hits us and continue to praying (Talk) to God, in time you're going to put a smile on God's face and He's going to come through for you and your prayer.  Unless we have the pure unadulterated faith of a mustard seed,  We're always going to have a little bit of doubt.  Ironically Catholics and not the protestants are the ones who know and recognize this more about God.  I was brought up Catholic, so I knew this at an early age.  Prayer IS WORKS.  It's not easy to "Work" that kind of prayer day in and day out when the enemies doing everything he can to slam you off course.  That's what fasting is all about.  It's tugging at God's garment hem and not letting go, while the devils got a hold of your feet and he's trying to pull you off.  God takes notice of things like that.  Believe me He does.  None of my prayers have 100% pure faith wrapped up in them. There are people reading this blog right now that know exactly what I'm talking about.  All of us are prayer warriors in one way or another but you don't need a mustard seed kind of faith for this kind of prayer to be successful. This kind of prayer isn't what James is talking about when he says the prayer of faith will heal the sick.  Paul talks about praying throughout the whole day. But again, that's different from what prayer warriors do.  Intercessors or prayer warriors don't necessarily have great faith.  They have great tenacity.  The Holy Spirit helps them get up and keep moving. Keep praying.  Wars last longer than one or two days.  Don't be discouraged if God's not answering your prayer right away.  You're lack of faith isn't the problem.  That's a trap door the enemy wants you to believe.  Don't stop praying and don't get discouraged. Get back up and keep moving.