When I saw this video about Planned Parenthood for the first time this morning and it suggested that I embed it on my website, you just can’t believe how eager I was to do that!

Planned Parenthood has been “bending the rules” and killing our babies for years, and using millions of our tax dollars to do it. They do not love our children or their babies. They do not offer help or adoption. It is time we stop funding them.

Lila Rose, 20-year-old UCLA student and president of the non-profit Live Action, went undercover at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Birmingham and told a counselor that she was 14-years-old, pregnant by her 31-year-old “boyfriend.” Rose said she needed a secret abortion so her parents would not find out about her sexual relationship with the older man.

After telling the counselor that her “boyfriend” is 31, Rose asks, “Is it a problem about my boyfriend?” The counselor, identified as “Tanisha” in the video, responds, “As long as you consented to having sex with him, there’s nothing we can truly do about that.” Rose then says that her boyfriend “said he could get in big trouble,” and Tanisha acknowledges that “he could, especially if your parents find out that he’s 31.” She then tells Rose that the clinic manager, OB/GYN Dr. Desiree Bates, “sometimes does bend the rules a little bit” and states that “whatever you tell us stays within these walls” and “we can’t disclose any information to anybody.”

Alabama code 26-14-3 requires health professionals to disclose suspected cases of sexual abuse to state officials immediately.

“The law is explicit about a healthcare provider’s duty to report, yet Planned Parenthood pretends they cannot say anything,” Rose notes of the investigation. “Planned Parenthood increases its business and influence by circumventing state reporting laws, but inflicts terrible harm upon the vulnerable young girls sent back to statutory rapists.”

In the video, Tanisha also seems to tell Rose that a signature from an “older sister that’s over the age of 18” or someone “with the same last name” could function as a substitute for parental consent so Planned Parenthood could perform an abortion on a minor. Alabama Code 26-21-3 specifies that the written permission of either a parent or legal guardian is necessary before a minor may obtain an abortion.

The new video is sixth in Live Action’s “Mona Lisa Project,” a nationwide undercover investigation that documents Planned Parenthood’s repeated noncompliance with state mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse of minors. Alabama is the fourth state to be implicated in the controversy, along with Arizona, Indiana, and Tennessee. Recently, the investigation of a clinic in Memphis, TN assisted state legislators in their effort to successfully divert nearly $1 million in taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood to law-abiding local health clinics.

“When to ‘bend the rules a little’ means hiding a case of statutory rape from Child Protective Services and looking for ways around the parental consent requirement, Planned Parenthood becomes directly responsible for ensuring that statutory rapists can continue their abuse of young girls,” Rose says. (Christian Newswire)

We’re getting ready for the TEA party on July 4th in a nearby town (New Milford, CT on the Green at 10 AM) .  Getting ready consists of making signs to show why we are there.  So far, we have four signs.   (As you can tell, there are no experts at work here!) If it’s possible that there are folks out there not familiar with modern day TEA parties, they are inspired by the Boston Tea Party, and in 2009 TEA means “Taxed Enough Already.”

Poor Obama.  Something on the reverse of his photo bled through and I had to apply make-up to his face.  Even so, he’s pitiful.

The reverse of this sign reads:

WHY PAY TAXES WHEN YOU CAN JUST PRINT MORE MONEY?

At last count the TEA party website says there are 1316 TEA parties planned for the Fourth of July.

Where will YOUR TEA PARTY be held?

And just to get you in the mood, check out OBAMAMAN CAN!


Well, Sunday has come and our interview has come to fruition.  Here we are, in living color, doing what we’ve been doing for 20 years.  Stanley is 90 and I’m 86.  Truly, we need new young blood. All that low key interviewing was leading to a major story about the Abortion Debate Raging in Danbury. We certainly didn’t expect to be featured so prominently and the coverage seems to go on and on.  I have gotten it on my computer the best I could.   Comments would be appreciated as to whether this liberal paper did a fair and balanced report.

DANBURY — The pro-choice and pro-life forces have found common ground in decrying the murder last month of Dr. George Tiller, who performed abortions in Kansas. Dawn Tendler, the owner and director of Medical Options, a Danbury abortion clinic, said this week she was “horrified” by the murder. “It’s just murder,” observed Dorothy Vining, another protester.And she is joined in that sentiment by some of those who protest regularly in front of her clinic.”We absolutely condemn it,” said protester Gerald Leblanc.Despite the agreement on that matter, the tension between Tendler and the protesters continues unabated.

One of the protesters, Jack Leitner, pointed out there are about 3,300 abortions in the United States every day. “We grieve for those 3,300 babies, just as we grieve for George Tiller,” Leitner said.

Tiller was gunned down May 31 by an anti-abortion zealot while Tiller was attending church.

In December, when Medical Options, the only clinic in Danbury that offers women abortions, moved from its long-established base on Main Street — its home for 20 years — to new offices on Hospital Avenue, it took pro-life protesters about a week to find it.

The protesters have gathered in front of Medical Options for years to oppose abortion. “They didn’t notify us,” Vining said with a smile. “They just up and left.”

And so the pro-choice/pro-life confrontation continues. The protesters picket Medical Options every Tuesday and every Saturday, rain or shine — the same arguments, new location.

“Oh, yes,” said Tendler, when asked if the protesters found the new offices. “Sometimes they march,” she said. “Sometimes they leaflet. Sometimes they follow people into the hallway.”

And sometimes — as happened this month — people yell things at the protesters.

In this case, it was “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Usually, it’s ‘Get a job,'” Vining noted.

This debate, now 36 years old, if you count the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 as its official beginning, seems to have no ending.

Occasionally, there are attempts at reconciliation. In his graduation address at Notre Dame University on May 17, President Barack Obama — while acknowledging the debate, at its heart, may be “irreconcilable” — asked for “Open hearts. Open minds, fair-minded words” from both camps, in hopes they might find ways of reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, and abortions, in the United States.

Then, two weeks later, on May 31, an anti-abortion zealot gunned down Tiller. It was the last in a string of threats and acts of violence against Tiller, who ran an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kan., and who — on the principle that some women needed them — was one of the few doctors in the United States who performed third-term abortions.

No clinic in Connecticut, including Medical Options, offers third-term abortions, Tendler said.

“I was horrified,” Tendler said of Tiller’s death. “I knew him personally. He was one of the most kind, most thoughtful persons I’ve ever met.”

There is another point of common ground between the two camps, although it is one not always acknowledged as such: that no woman wants to have an abortion.

“Nobody says, ‘Oh honey, let’s have sex. Next week we’ll go have an abortion,”’ Tendler said.

Instead, the women who come to Medical Options, she said, come for many reasons, none of them useful in creating stereotypes to condemn.

“Some are victims of sexual assault, or date rape,” Tendler said. “Some are teenagers. Some are women who are in their 40s and thought they were going through menopause.”

Some women are accompanied by their boyfriends or husbands. Some aren’t. The teenagers almost always come with a parent.

“I would say 95 percent of the girls under 18 who come here come with a parent,” Tendler said.

The number of women using the clinic is dropping, she said. Medical Options now performs about 850 procedures a year. In the 1990s, the annual number was more like 1,800.

Yet for the past decade, statistics show the number of abortions in the state has increased, according to the state Department of Health. There were 12,908 abortions in Connecticut in 2000 and 14,534 in 2007.

Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, credits the increase to the lack of restrictions on those seeking abortions in the state. In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, teenagers need parental consent before getting an abortion. In Connecticut, they don’t.

“If you’re a minor in Connecticut, you need your parent’s consent to get a tattoo or an aspirin in school,” Wolfgang said. “You don’t need it for an abortion.”

However, Susan Yolen, vice-president for public affairs for Planned Parenthood in Connecticut, said it’s hard to know if a few years of data represent a real trend, or simply a variance that might change. “I’d like to see a few more years — 2010, 2011,” Yolen said. “It might even out.”

The state’s increase came while the number of the abortions in the U.S. declined about 8 percent.

Tendler said there may be at least two other reasons for the national decline in abortions. One is that people are becoming better educated about birth control. The other is that women now are much more comfortable with being unmarried single mothers.

“There’s less stigma,” Tendler said. “People see the Hollywood women doing that and think it’s all right.”

At the same time, a recent Gallup Poll showed 51 percent of Americans identify themselves as pro-life, while 42 percent said they were pro-choice.

Last year in the same poll, 50 percent of those questioned called themselves pro-choice, while 44 percent said they were pro-life.

Rachel Jones, a senior research associate with the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based group that studies sexual and reproductive health in the U.S. and internationally, expressed some skepticism about the poll numbers, saying they seemed to be a conservative reaction to the election of a more liberal president.

“The same types of polls showed much more concern about things like gun rights,” Jones said.

But Peter Wolfgang of the Family Institute of Connecticut said the polls may reflect a real change in American opinion.

“I’m sure sonograms have had a lot to do with it,” he said. “When you see one, it’s impossible to deny the baby’s humanity.”

It may also be due to a change in the national pro-life campaign, which in the mid-1990s de-emphasized its insistence that Roe v. Wade be overturned, instead advocating for more incremental changes in laws and trying to change hearts and minds at the local level.1

Tendler said at least one pro-life group in the region has asked her to sit and discuss some common ground.

But the irreconcilable differences remain. Tendler pointed out that in Connecticut, a woman’s choice to seek an abortion is the law.

“We have a pro-choice legislature, a pro-choice attorney general and a pro-choice governor,” she said. “We have Roe v. Wade codified into our legal statutes.”

And for the protesters outside Medical Options, and others who agree with them, there can be no compromise.

“You can’t find common ground here,” Leblanc said. “This is a matter of life or death.”

“How long will we keep doing this?” protester Vining asked. “Until we take our last breath.”

Contact Robert Miller

at bmiller@newstimes.com

or at (203) 731-3345.

It’s Hard to Find Common Ground on Abortion Debate

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If truth be told, when the author of the first blog on my blogroll asked me to visit her blog because she “had something for me,” I put it off because it involved a little more clicking than I wanted to do at the moment.  And, if truth be told, she is first on my blogroll only because it’s an alphabetical thing.   Her blog is A Bit of the Blarney by  GrandmaK.  Her name is Cathy Keller and I have just immersed myself in her blog.  It is so pretty and charming, with pictures, and family, and substance that if she didn’t already have this award, I’d give it to her!  But, imagine! – she, having received it,  in turn gave it to ME!

This is what I read on her blog:

Honest Scrap Award

My sincere thanks to Lisa at Are We There Yet and Eileen at Umma’s World for this delightful award. Both of these ladies offer me a place to go and enjoy the environment and down home friendliness. I will try to do justice by them in accepting this award and sharing a bit of who I am.

Rules:

1) Say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award.

2) Share “ten honest things” about myself.

3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.

4) Tell those 7 people that they’ve been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving it.

Of course, accepting this reward and doing justice  to it involves more work. Now I not only have to pick out 7 brilliant blogs but share “ten honest things” about myself.   Gadzooks!  Then there was the problem of getting that “Honest Scrap” picture from her blog to mine.  People,  you must be careful about the strains you put on old brains.  To top it all off, one has to wonder about whether it is a good idea for each awardee to choose seven other blogs to be similarly awarded.  It would seem that pretty soon every one would have one and it would be worth nothing.   Just a thought.

Now let me tell you about my real reward at Cathy’s blog.   No sooner did I log onto her blog than I was assaulted by the sound of very loud applause.  As it turned out, Clay Aiken was singing and crowds were making that racket.  Once I discovered that GrandmaK had a playlist of songs, I was able to quiet Aiken and move on.  I was SO IMPRESSED with her musical selections and their variety I just listened and listened until I had sampled all 43 of them.

I loved Mariah Carey’s O Holy Night and Ray Charles’  America, the Beautiful.  Marching songs always move me and she had Anchors Aweigh, the Army Air Corps Band, Stars and Stripes Forever,  as well as The Caissons Keep Rolling Along (Daddy sang that in WW I but his version differed.  Where this one goes Where e’er you go, you will always know, the caissons keep rolling along.  Dad would sing:  With a three-inch gun, we’re going to get the Hun..…). Also, three Michael Talbot selections, two of Ode to Joy, Amazing Grace, Time in a Bottle (Jim Croce), Tantum Ergo, On Eagles’ Wings.   As I say, I just listened and listened.  Thank you so much, Cathy.

I think my ten honest things and seven re-awards will be post-poned (pun)!

I don’t imagine that a lot of really young ‘uns read my blog but when you’re on the verge of 86 anything below 60 seems young.   I look back in amazement at the things I did in my 60’s!  So this is for the greying ones who actually do follow my blog and might be making decisions about their own future or, even, that of parents still living.

As an aside, I find my spam fascinating.  Bloggers all over the world want to provide me sexual enhancement drugs, narcotics, adult movies, et al.  They really put a lot of energy into luring folks to their sites but fortunately WordPress is very good at separating them out.  And for that I thank them.

So, young ‘uns, without a lot of commentary (actually none, because it speaks for itself) I invite you to contemplate and heed the wisdom in this lovely link with words by Anonymous and song by Josh Groban.  It is obvious to me that Anonymous has had some experience with the trials of aging.

~~~

[When] you were young you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.   — John 21:18

I know they are watching me. Call it paranoia if you wish, but I know they are watching. How do I know? Because I have been watching them.

It is quite likely that I am the oldest person among the 30-40 who attend morning mass at St. Joseph’s. There are several in their 80’s but I think I’m the oldest. A few years ago Bertha was the oldest but Bertha died at 88. Up until the end, she was a force to be reckoned with. I learned a lot from Bertha.

We watch each other because we know that sooner or later one of us is going to start failing. Anyone who reaches 86 has had some experience with loved ones failing and then dying. Mom and Dad, for starters. And, more recently, friends have left me behind. I watched as they underwent surgeries, falls, cancer, strokes. And died.

In the past week I’ve run into two women I hadn’t seen in perhaps 15-20 years. They came up to me and addressed me by name. I had no idea who they were. They said I hadn’t changed. (I know better–I have a mirror.) Once these women identified themselves, I could see they were right – they really were who they said they were. One had lost an amazing amount of weight; the other, always slim, seemed gaunt.

A week ago I went to a celebration of a friend’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. They are still a handsome couple, even in their 70’s. My profound observation as a result of my watching: Old people almost always walk funny. Most are round-shouldered, and seem cautious. They turn carefully and walk slowly. They tend to hold onto things. I know I am and do all of these things. In fact I have had to tell folks when I go places with them that they will have to slow down so I can keep up. Truly, it has come to this. I am reminded of a book by Eugene Geissler, The Best is Yet To Be: Life’s Meaning in the Aging Years, in which he describes the first time he went on an outing with his family and found he was not able to keep up the pace. Sooner or later, if we hang around long enough, we get to that place. Just a few nights ago I arrived early at a Seminar and tried to help arranging the chairs around the tables. I was worn out and short of breath in no time. Distressing.

I can think of only once exception. A lovely lady, just about my age, who stands straight and tall, and walks briskly. No flat shoes for her! She is always nicely coiffed and beautifully clothed. I am in awe and I ponder – is this the result of genes or lifestyle? I know it’s too late for me, but I’d like still to know.

One watcher says to me after mass, “How are ya, hon? You’re getting too skinny.” Which is exactly what I was thinking as I watched a man sitting up front. We are getting skinny together.

There’s a distinguished gentleman in a business suit whose story I’d like to know.  He often lights a votive candle before mass so I know he has a heart’s desire.   I add my prayer to his.

Not only do I watch the others, and they watch me, but I watch myself. Watching is something we old folks do well. Watch out.  We’re watching.

Or musing about watching.

~~~

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. — 2 Chronicles 16.9

Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray Argue to Beethoven’s Fifth

Isn’t it great that these memories have been saved for us?

It’s mid-June and I haven’t written a word about my garden this year.  It’s about time to get up-to-date.  The asparagus has already done its thing and was delicious, what there was of it.  It seems to be petering out over the years, probably because I don’t do anything for it or to it other than pick it.  The horseradish and rhubarb are HUGE and trying to take over the whole garden space.   The tomatoes, peppers, parsley, cilantro, and potatoes are thriving–that’s just about all I’ve put in this year – and all would be well if it weren’t for the MOLE!

Last year my nemesis was a rabbit, the first ever seen in this neighborhood in mid-town.   In fact, a photo of our young bunny was the first picture  ever posted on my blog.   I was a novice then and am not much better at pictures now.   Really must get myself one of those flip minos I read about!  That first-ever bunny ate up my broccoli but soon disappeared.

Now I have my first-ever mole.  Haven’t even seen this one but it wreaks havoc in the mulch and I know very well where its hole is.    Every morning when I look at the garden the mulch (using lawn clippings very kindly provided by my grandson, Danny) is all torn up and upheaveled. And the little snap trap that I put over the hole is sprung but empty.   Fortunately, from what I read, moles don’t eat plants – what they are after is grubs and worms and bugs and those are things that are surely happy under my mulch.

I just looked up Ruth Stout and can’t believe that her book How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back was first published way back in 1959.  I immediately took that book as my gardening bible and have used her ‘no work/no dig’ technique ever since.  Her secret was to surround her plants with lots of  hay (and any other available compostible material) which keeps the weeds down, the ground moist, and feeds the good earth to boot. Although she died in 1980 at the age of 96, a new edition of Ruth’s book came out in 1990.  She lived in nearby Redding, CT, and I actually visited her and her garden in the 1970’s.   Ruth was a free spirit who loved the simple life, and her book is a treasure for organic gardeners.    Every gardener should read it. My garden has 45 years worth of leaves, clippings, egg shells, vegetable scraps, etc., in it and is really good dirt.  Plants thrive and worms abound.   But now, a mole has found it and is having a hey-day!

What to do?  Ask Google, of course.  Besides costing money, most of the contraptions for getting rid of moles seem to involve impaling the critter rather than catching it.  It seems easier to first try repelling them.  I read about a repellent containing fox and bobcat urea which is supposed to strike fear into the heart of a mole.  Another repellent contains castor oil.  The one I’m going to try first (because I have the key ingredient right in my yard) is a Mint Mole Blaster made by blending mint leaves with water and boiling it up.  It is said that moles hate the smell of mint.  I’ll report on my success.  I hope we’re onto something here.

In the course of my googling I learned that Mole-in-the-Hole computer games are popular.  Have a try at Whack-a-Mole,  simple and fun and
good for channeling mole angst.

~~~

God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.  – Genesis 1, 28

The five of us were walking back and forth Tuesday morning in front of the professional office building that houses TWO abortion facilities, minding our own business, which was praying for an end to legalized abortion in that building, this city, our state and our country.  Carrying our signs, we took turns leading the rosary. A graying gentleman approached, notebook in hand, and seemed to want to talk to us. I said to him, “What do you think?” at which point he identified himself as Robert Miller, a reporter from the local News-Times newspaper. He said he would like to ask us some questions. Since we are not ashamed of what we do, in fact, actually think our witness and prayers are important, we agreed – even though I realized that Mr. Miller was a long-time employee of a very liberal newspaper.

As a good and experienced reporter, he did a fine job of interviewing. Why were we there? Where were we from? How often did we come? Did the same people come on both Tuesdays and Saturdays (the killing days) or different people? What did we think of the murder of abortionist George Tiller? Stem cell research? We simply told him the truth. When he left I said “Be kind to us,” and he assured us that he was impartial.

When he was through, he informed us that the newspaper’s photographer would soon be along to take our pictures. Carol Kaliff arrived in due time and took many, many digital photos being sure to include the Defend Life posters on the telephone pole and the rosaries we are carrying. We were told they planned to publish our story in the Sunday paper.

Why am I leery? These people are very good at their jobs, had kind faces, and were professional. The trouble is that I know – from sad experience – how easy it is to spin a story and both Miller and Kaliff have worked for a long time (20 years?) for a very liberal paper. That could say something about their ideology.  I have to wonder whatever prompted them to decide to do a story on our little group when they ignored a TEA  party on the city Green last week attended by hundreds.   How will it all turn out? Time will tell.

Please add your prayers to mine.

It’s only a small newspaper but watch it produce!  See the News-Times presses roll!

~~~

My tables — meet it is I set it down

That one may smile and smile and be a villain. — Shakespeare, Hamlet

I went to a Life in the Spirit Seminar the other night and the speaker was telling about a time  when she had sold her house and had certain plans for the money but her ex-husband’s parents wanted her to do something else with it.   She said when she brought the matter to prayer the Lord told her “Honor your father and your mother.”  She told the Lord she didn’t think he understood — these were not her parents, these were in-laws.  She had children and she had to provide for them and they needed a home, etc., etc.   And the Lord said, “I love your children more than you do.”  She heeded the voice and things have worked out well.

Time and time again when someone gives witness to a remarkable turnaround or rescue or healing they will say, “God said…”  and I wish I could collar them and ask “exactly how” did God speak.  “Did you hear an actual voice  or was it just a feeling in your gut?  Exactly how did God
tell you? “

Long ago, in my early days in a prayer group, I was freed from my agoraphobia.  I was ever so grateful and felt I had to witness to that wonderful healing but I hated, hated, hated speaking in public.  I “just happened” to read in Sirach 4:31: “Do not let your hand be stretched out to receive and closed when it is time to give.”   This really spoke to my heart and impelled me to speak up in the group and tell what God had done for me.   So God ‘kinda’ spoke to me but that’s not what I understand when someone says “God told me…..”

Here was my opportunity.  I had available a Godly woman, teaching about the workings of the Holy Spirit, saying that ‘God told her…’.  I expected truth from her.  So, of course, I asked, “Just how did God tell you?  Did you hear a voice?”  She explained that she had heard no voice, the words had just sort of come into her mind.   This I completely understand as I have written previously about a similar experience of my own.  But I would believe that God sometimes actually speaks in words to some people if I had never had a similar experience myself.  There is just too much testimony to this from many trustworthy people, both in the bible and over the years of Christian history.

God called Samuel three times and Samuel thought it was Eli calling.  On the third try, he said “Speak Lord I’m listening.”

In the New Testament God spoke to Peter while he was on the roof waiting for lunch. God said, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15)

In my copy of the “Notebooks”  of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska the words of Jesus are in bold type.  The text of her “Notebooks” is over 600 pages long and almost every page contains words in bold type.   Jesus had a lot to explain to her about his mercy, and the portrait he wanted to
have painted depicting his mercy.

Consider Christ Otto who writes:    “Three weeks ago I was doing my usual routine of prayer, Bible study, and quietly listening to God. Usually I begin the day with ‘Lord, what’s on your agenda today?'” he explained. “That day, my mind wandered a little, and I imagined hundreds of red envelopes in the mail room of the White House. On the back, a simple message stating that each envelope represented an innocent life lost. I took that idea, and sent it in an email to my 120 ministry supporters. They in turn, sent it to their friends.”   The rest, as they say, is history.  President Obama  received thousands of red envelopes at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in February of this year.

How does one discern God’s will if there are no words and no visions?   Wayne Jacobsen of Windblown Media which brought us the best seller, The Shack writes:

I have a running conversation with him about everything in my life and express my desire to follow his will at every turn. I immerse myself in the story of Scripture, learning how he thinks and acts. I have a steady diet of what God is showing others by what I read and listen to, and the conversations I have with others on this journey.

So how do I sort out his nudges from my own thoughts? Most nudges I get from his Spirit are simple ways of loving and serving people around me. I am not too worried about getting those wrong. There aren’t many downsides to serving others. But to have some measure of confidence to step out in a larger action he may be asking of me, I look for four things to to come into agreement:

1. An intuitive, growing conviction of his leading over time.

2. Affirmation in the truth and example of Scripture that this is how God works.

3. Confirmation from other brothers and sisters as I discuss it with them.

4. And the reality of unfolding circumstances.

When those voices are in synch, I have greater confidence that I am following him. But you know what? Sometimes all of these line up and I still get it wrong. That’s why people born of the Spirit rarely use language like, “God told me to…”, and will instead talk in terms of what they sense…..And while I’m willing to pay the consequences for being wrong, I also know he can weave my mistakes into his purposes.

How does God speak to us?  He has spoken throughout the ages through his prophets.   God spoke by sending his Word, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He inspired the words of scripture and established a church to protect and interpret these words. He speaks through prophecy, dreams and visions.  (Acts 2:17)  He leads us through signs and coincidences.   He speaks through the saints.  He speaks through the testimony or ordinary people.  He can speak through an actual voice, or an interior voice, or an inner feeling.  The heavens themselves proclaim the glory of God.  He even spoke to Balaam through an ass!  (Numbers 22:28-30)

LISTEN.

~~~

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. — John 10:27.

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. — Psalm 95.