jburns1947's Blog

One Solitary Life

 

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.

He grew up in still another village,

where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.

Then for three years he was an intinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book!

He never held an office!

He never owned a home!

He didn't attend college!

He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born.

He did none of these things one usually associates with greatness.

He had no credentials but Himself.

 

He was only 33 when public opinion turned against Him.

His friends ran away.

He was turned over to His enemies and went through

the mockery of a trial.

He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.

 

When He was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing,

the only property He had on earth.

When He was dead, he was laid in a borrowed tomb

through the pity of a friend.

 

Centuries have come and gone now,

and today He is the central figure of the human race,

whether people want to believe that or not.

 

All the armies that ever marched,

all the navies that ever sailed,

all the parliaments that ever sat,

all the kings that ever reigned,

put together,

have not affected the life of those of us on earth as much as that

One Solitary Life!

He was born to die..............For Us!

~Author known to God

Got this early this a.m. from a friend & thought you would be interested.  Be very careful when you quote Snopes as a final authority.  For a long time now I have recommended that folks take a look at Truth or Fiction and even told some that Snopes is a mom and pop operation.  This e mail is very enlightening.  Take a look at it.   
      ----- Original Message ----- Subject: SNOPES EXPOSED - 25 AUG 10  

 

Check out this story on the following websites:
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/83/370/Snopes_Exposed.html
http://community..marketwatch.com/group/topic.sync?groupname=us-politics&topicname=snopescom-funded-soros-owned-2
http://lexingtonlibertarian.blogspot.com/


Snopes receives funding from an undisclosed source. The  source is
undisclosed because Snopes refuses to disclose that source. The Democratic
Alliance, a funding channel for  uber-Leftist (Marxist) Billionaires (George
Soros etc.), direct funds to  an "Internet Propaganda  Arm" pushing these
views. The Democratic Alliance has been reported to  instruct Fundees to not
disclose their funding source.

For the past few  years www.snopes.com <http://www.snopes.com/> has
positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as  the 'tell-all final word'
on any comment, claim and email. But for several  years people tried to find
out who exactly was behind snopes.com. It is run by a husband and wife
team - that's right, no  big office of investigators and researchers, no
team of lawyers. It's just  a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.
David and Barbara Mikkelson  in the San Fernando Valley of California
started the website about 13  years ago and they have no formal background
or experience in  investigative research.

The reason for the questions - or skepticisms - is a result  of snopes.com
claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain  questions or issue when
in fact they have been proven wrong. Also, there  were criticisms the
Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting  to the 'true' bottom
of various issues.

A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg  in Mandeville hoisted
a political sign referencing Barack Obama  and made a big splash across the
Internet, 'supposedly' the Mikkelson's  claim to have researched this issue
before posting their findings on  snopes.com.

In their statement they claimed the corporate office of  State Farm
pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing  of the sort
'ever' took place. I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and  he replied
back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this  and I gave
him Bud Gregg's contact phone  numbers- and Bud was going to give him phone
numbers to  the big exec's at State Farm in Illinois who would have been
willing to  speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned
from Bud  Gregg that no one from snopes.com ever  contacted anyone with
State Farm.

Yet, snopes.com issued  a statement as the 'final factual word' on the issue
as if they did all  their homework and got to the bottom of things - not!

Then it has  been learned the Mikkelson's are very Democratic (party) and
extremely  liberal. As we all now know from this presidential election,
liberals have  a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to be
conservative.  There has been much criticism lately over the Internet with
people  pointing out the Mikkelson's liberalism revealing itself in their
website  findings. Gee, what a shock?

So, I say this now to everyone who goes to  snopes.com   to get what they
think to be the bottom line fact 'proceed  with caution.' Take what it says
at face value and nothing more. Use it  only to lead you to their references
where you can link to and read the  sources for yourself. Plus,you can
always search a subject and do the  research yourself.

I have found this to be true also! Many videos  of Obama I tried to verify
on Snopes and they said they were False. Then  they gave their liberal
slant! I have suspected some problems with snopes  for some time now, but I
have only caught them in half-truths. If there is  any subjectivity they do
an immediate full left rudder.

I have  recently discovered that Snopes.com is owned by a flaming liberal
and this  man is in the tank for Obama. There are many things they have
listed on  their site as a hoax and yet you can go to You tube yourself and
find the  video of Obama actually saying these things. So you see, you
cannot and  should not trust Snopes.com, ever for anything that remotely
resembles  truth! I don't even trust them to tell me if email chains are
hoaxes  anymore.

A few conservative speakers on MySpace told me about Snopes.com. A  few
months ago and I took it upon myself to do a little research to find  out if
it was true. Well, I found out for myself that it is true. Anyway  just FYI
please don't use Snopes.com anymore for fact checking and make  your friends
aware of their political leanings as well. Many people still
thinkSnopes.com is  neutral and they can be trusted as factual. We need to
make sure everyone  is aware that that is a hoax in itself.

Thank you,

Alan  Strong
Alan Strong CEO/Chairman
Commercial Programming Systems,  Inc.
4400 Coldwater Canyon Ave. Suite
200 Studio City, CA.  91604-5039

The Images of Mother 

4 YEARS OF AGE - My Mommy can do anything! 

8 YEARS OF AGE - My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot! 

12 YEARS OF AGE - My Mother doesn't know everything! 
 
14 YEARS OF AGE - My Mother? She wouldn't have a clue. 

16 YEARS OF AGE - Mother? She's so five minutes ago.

18 YEARS OF AGE - That old woman? She's way out of date! 

25 YEARS OF AGE - Well, she might know a little bit about it! 

35 YEARS OF AGE - Before we decide, let's get Mom's opinion. 

45 YEARS OF AGE - Wonder what Mom would have thought about it? 

65 YEARS OF AGE - Wish I could talk it over with Mom. 

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure she carries, or the way she combs her hair. 

The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, 
Because that is the doorway to her heart, 
The place where love resides. 
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, 
but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul 
It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she 
shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows! 

I don't respond to things that I myself have never experienced. I share my experiences in the hope that someone will benefit from them. Keep what you like and feel free to discard anything that's not helpful to you. There are no right or wrong experiences, and there's no need to get offended or upset with if our perception differs on the same experience so keep your rude or crude comments to  yourself and move on.

1. Emotionally damaged by a tempermental and highly critical father.   

2.  Rebelled at father's oppression at 17, became pregnant and eloped (in that order)

3. First Husband was unfaithful, had a habit of abandonment from time to time, and was killed in Vietnam when our son was 2 years old.

4. Four years later I remarried my junion high school flame who physically abused my son once. He physically abused me often.

5.After 5 years of marriage he left  only because the doctors concurred that I was on the verge of having a total breakdown - mental, emotional and physical.

6.During this marriage I held down a full time job where I was sexually harrassed by my boss.

7.My son became diabetic during this second marriage.

8.After divorcing I sowed a lot of "wild oats" and looking for love in all the wrong places to the neglect of my son.

9.Five years later I married my 3rd husband who was also abusive to me and was a secret alcholic who, 3 years later, was killed in an alcohol related trucking accident.

10.During this marriage, he brought home a sexually transmitted disease to me.

11.During this marriage, my son went to live with his grandparents and we became estranged from one another and to this day, even though he says he has forgiven my mistakes, we are still not as close to each other.

12.During this 3rd marriage I quit my job of five years and agreed to run his small business for him while he was an over-the-road trucker. He was jealous that I was running the business without him.

13.During this 3rd marriage I found a relationship with God who has brought me emotional and spiritual healing, but I did not escape the physical consequences - I suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and have various physical illnesses related to it. During this period I developed an unshakably strong faith in God.

14.His family blamed me for his drinking because it was easier for them than to face the truth.

15. After his accident - he survived in the burn unit, (in a different state from where we lived)  for a month during which time his family persecuted me mercilessly.

16.During this time his trucking company fired him immediately and threatened not to pay workmen's comp for his related medical bills. His ex-wife threatened to take us (me) back to court for non-payment of child support and continued to make it as difficult as possible to settle his estate. I even had to go so far as to hire a lawyer to get released from lawyer's who were still trying after several years to sue everybody that had anything to do with the truck and the company.(The original lawyers said it would hurt their case for the family if I withdrew my name from the suit)

17. I've changed Churches because a legalist pastor denied me the opportunity to practice my God-given ministry of encouragement.

18.I've never known REAL love from a man.

19.Am content to be alone. I was an only child with no brothers, sisters or grandparents. God keeps me  too busy to be lonely and I have been happily widowed since 1984.

20.My parents both had a lot of health problems which involved me in a lot of care-taking during their lives.

21.My mother went through a nervous breakdown while living with me when my father was hospitalized f.or for a month. I had a full time job and was taking care of a diabetic child at the same time.

22.My parents had no close friends and depended on me alone for a their support system and social life.

23 My father lived 10 years after my mother's death which gave us an opportunity to get to know each other and develop a relationship with each other. I learned some things that I didn't know: he was shot twice during WW2 and was finally discharged with a nervous breakdown. My father wanted to see live with and take care of his elderly sick parents before he married. My mom promised to live with them after they married, but immediately got pregnant and insisted on moving out on their own. I finally realized that he had  valid reasons to be an angry person. 

24. My dad was an extreme pack-rat (grew up in a poor family during the Great Depression) which influenced me to go to the other extreme.

25. I've experienced 3 major life-threatening operations.

26. Am in daily constant pain.

27.Lost my best friend of 10 years with no explanation.

28.Daily live with the fact that my non-malignant brain tumor could start growing at any time and require further surgery.

29. Spent my first 30 years without knowing God,

30.Spent the last 30 years getting to know Him.

31.Quit smoking for 15 years but have slowly been drifting back to it this last year upon my retirement.

32.Always struggled with weight problems.

33.Lost my thick hair twice due to illness.

34.Feel overwhelmed easily due to my PTSD.

35.As best I can, I've tried to simplify my life in every way possible, and learned to separate necessary stress from the unnecessary.

36..Believe that God has gifted me with two different ministries on which the majority of my time and energy is spent on.

37.With God's help I have arrived in my "promised-land and have finally found my "sweet spot" in life.

 

.

 

 

                                                                                               

 

Tony Dungy: Quiet Confidence A Super Bowl™ champion coach talks about being part of two winning teams. by Brian Connor    For years, NFL™ insiders and media “experts” wondered if Tony Dungy had what it took to win the Super Bowl™. Many said, as a born-again Christian, he was “too nice” to lead a team to the NFL’s “promised land.” Many confused the coach’s quiet demeanor with weakness. It’s a mistake they won’t make again after Dungy’s Indianapolis Colts defeated the Chicago Bears this past January in Super Bowl XLI. But just moments after that landmark victory—the one that made him the first African-American head coach to win the NFL championship—Dungy was reminded of what really matters in life.  “What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Dungy says he asked himself. “And as we’re sitting there on the Super Bowl victory podium, that’s what I was thinking. That we’ve done this and the world would say, ‘Here’s the number one accomplishment.’ But it really, in the long run, it’s not.”  Tony Dungy’s faith journey began after graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1977. He had grown up in church and made a decision to follow Jesus Christ at an early age. But it wasn’t until he joined the Pittsburgh Steelers as a rookie, free-agent cornerback that he truly began to focus on his relationship with God.            “When I was about 21 years old,” Dungy explains, “I got around a group of guys in Pittsburgh as a professional player. And I saw these guys that really, everything that they did was, revolved around Christ and honoring Him and living that way and really having a lifestyle that was not only being saved, but also having Christ as the Lord of your life. As I got into that with them, Bible studies and chapels and reading the Bible and just talking back and forth, that’s when I really understood and I think I really started growing as a Christian.” In 1978, Dungy’s second NFL season, the Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XIII. But just months later, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers. At the time, they were the worst team in the NFL. “I went from a championship team to a 2-and-14 team,” Dungy says. “And I began to understand that everything isn’t just for your comfort and happiness; and I learned a lot going, leaving Pittsburgh and going to different teams; and things that benefited me in the future.” Dungy’s playing career ended just two years later. But that’s when his coaching career began. In 1981, at the age of 25, “Coach” Dungy became the NFL’s youngest assistant. He rejoined the Steelers as a defensive coach. He moved steadily up the coaching ranks and became head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1997. Dungy says, “I want to show people that you can be in this profession, you can be in the limelight, you can be in a tough sport and you can still have Biblical principles and Biblical leadership really determine how you do things.” But after six seasons in Tampa, and four playoff appearances, Dungy was fired in 2001. The Buccaneers were convinced their head coach couldn’t win big games. That’s when the Indianapolis Colts saw their chance to add a “missing ingredient” to a talented, but underachieving team. “I really thought at that time I might stay in Tampa and be out of football,” Dungy remembers. “But I got a call from Jim Irsay, the owner here, and he talked about his vision for this football team in this community. And after talking to him, I realized that this is where the Lord was directing me.” Since Dungy took over as head coach in 2002, Indianapolis has the NFL’s best record and been to the playoffs every year. And with the Colts’ 2007 Super Bowl victory, Dungy proved that no matter what disappointments we face in life, faith in Jesus Christ always makes you a winner. He also showed the world that nice guys can finish first. “Many times you don’t think things are going exactly right,” Dungy explains. “We were very close many years and never quite got there and a lot of people said we’d never get there, to that Super Bowl. But just hanging in there, pushing forward—like Paul says, ‘Looking forward, looking ahead and not looking backwards.’” “The great thing to me about sports in general and certainly NFL football is that you don’t win every week. Even as a championship team, we had 4 losses last year, so everything isn’t just smooth sailing; and you do have to come back from losses. You have to come back from adversity. You have seasons where everything doesn’t go your way and you have to kind of rebuild and retool and start over again. And I think that’s the same way in the Christian life.”