TODAY IS CHESHVAN 3 AND TONIGHT WILL BE CHESHVAN 4

Hey! Good Afternoon! Today is Cheshvan 3...Yom Shaynee. It is a beautiful day here in my little part of the world. There is snow to the West of me and snow to the East of me and I am stuck in the middle with none! But that is a good thing because I would really like some Fall weather! The trees have not even been turning colors very much and the leaves have not been falling either.

I love trees! I have no trees in my yard. So I have to look out my windows or go outside to look at the trees in my neighbors' yards! I want some trees! Little trees sprout up in my yard and sometimes they grow rather fast and I always hope that maybe I can do or say something so that at least one is spared and allowed to live. But alas, all are always mowed down. It is a belief by certain men that yards should have nothing in the way of mowing. No flowers..no trees. My husband believes this and my Dad was the same way. He would cut down bushes and flowers because it was a nuisance to mow around them. I heard the stories about the grape vines and the lilac bushes my whole life! I have some about my husband too. He chopped down our lilac bushes and he cut down two beautiful Red Bud Trees once upon a time!

Yes, Fall is here. It is my favorite time of year. The weather gets cooler...it becomes brisk! The trees turn colors and the leaves fall. We rake the leaves into huge mounds and invaribly the kids run and jump in it. Or in my case, we didn't have enough leaves one year so I took leaves from our neighbor's yard and then we had an enormouse huge mountain of leaves and my kids and their friends had great fun playing in them!

Fall also brings a holiday that I used to love. It was my favorite holiday. Halloween. We really didn't make a big deal about it when I was a child. We had a room party at school and back then all grades could dress up and we went 'trick or treating'. Sometimes someone would have a party which was always great fun. And we believed it was just harmless good fun but now we know better, don't we?




Halloween...October 31st...what is it truly all about?

So often we hear...'Halloween is for the kids!' 'It is just good old fashioned fun.' 'There's no harm in it.' How many times do we hear 'there are no real witches, or spells or sacrifices now' or 'I don't believe in this stuff we just want to have fun and it is just for one night'? AND I HEAR....'CHRISTIANS DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE DOING'. When I was still in the church I may not have had full knowledge of the origins of Halloween but I sure as 'HELL' knew it was not Christian! Yes, I allowed my kids to dress up..sometimes dress as evil as they wanted to. I dressed as the 'Mother from Hell' almost every Halloween. My house was decorated as much for Halloween as for Christmas. Did I sense evil?..well of course I did! Any one who professes to be born again, Spirit filled, Tongue talking and a Bible wagging Christian HAS TO FEEL THE EVIL OF HALLOWEEN! Did it stop me? NO! I did not stop until I became Torah observant and began celebrating the Biblical Feasts and Holy Days of YHVH! BUT any one with any sense and who does not want anything to do with evil should have some inkling that this is a day NOT to be celebrated!



Now, let me ask you something.....IF in fact this is a harmless holiday and you just celebrate as you do other holidays...WHY? All holidays have a reason for being celebrated..do they not? We will look at the 'holidays' and from the view point of the world and the 'church' we will try to come up with an answer to why Halloween is celebrated by good people and not just the evil ones.........................(these are not necessarily the holidays I celebrate but what most Americans celebrate in general)...............



New Year's Day.....to celebrate and commemorate the new year.



St. Valentine's Day....to commemorate a guy named Valentine and his love for a woman.



St. Patrick's Day.......to commemorate Patrick, who brought Christianity to the pagans in Ireland.



Easter.......to commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus.



Memorial Day.....to commemorate the deaths of our fallen men and women who served our country.



4th of July......to celebrate and commemorate the independence of our nation.



Labor Day.....to commemorate all the hard working people in America.



Veteran's Day...to commemorate all of our veterans.



Thanksgiving.....To give thanks to G-d and commemorate the first Thanksgiving here in the New World.



Christmas.......To commemorate the birth of Jesus.



HALLOWEEN......to commemorate and celebrate WHAT? Oh yes, I forgot, the Catholic church took the pagan day of Samhain and made it into a church day of 'commemorating' all dead saints of the church....so that it would no longer be a day of commemorating all the dead people who would be walking the earth as spirits and there would be no evil that day. Hmmmmmmmm.



HALLOWEEN.....WHAT IS BEING COMMEMORATED? WHAT IS BEING HONORED?



DARKNESS?

WITCHES?

MONSTERS?

GHOULS?

ZOMBIES?

BLOOD?

GRAVEYARDS?

VAMPIRES?

JACK O'LANTERNS?

DRUIDS?

PAGANS?

SKELETONS?

DEATH?

EVILNESS?

SATAN?


WHAT DO YOU THINK??????




Here is a good teaching on halloween and its origins. I feel it is very important that we come into truth about these holidays that we have celebrated blindly all of our lives!

http://temcat.com/06-HiddenHistory/holidays/A%20Halloween%20Book.pdf

Look how innocent it looks for the children to go out 'Trick or Treating........


BUT here is the truth...the witches and evil ones desire to prey on the innocent.....


How innocent is a bonfire? They used to be called 'bonefires'! This is an unretouched picture. It was taken by my daughter at a bonfire she went to with friends from college. Looks like the Grim Reaper is looking for some action, don't ya think? He even looks to have his whip!


THIS IS THE TURTH ABOUT IT ALL................


Oh I almost forgot..we all love the candy...but knowing where candy corn comes from makes me wonder about all the rest!

Hey, I am still here...where are you?

Hey where are you? I am here..just haven't been writing. I try. I want to say so much but sometimes I don't even know where to begin.

Today is the fourth day of Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles. I am struggling. My sukkah is up. The sukkah is a temporary dwelling place. Our Father instructed the Hebrews to live in at this time each year to remember the Exodus and when they lived in temporary dwellings during their forty year journey through the wilderness. He was their covering...protecting them, sustaining them, guiding them and this is why we are to do it still today..whether Jewish by birth or grafted in. His Biblical 'holidays' have not changed nor did they end...they are the same today as they were then. Our ELOHIM has not changed..He is the same today, yesterday and forever.

BUT this is where the problem lies. The church does not teach that we are to follow the Way of G-d. It teaches we are to follow the man made doctrines and teachings of the church and it has embedded its way strongly into the world. So, if we grew up going to church or not, we have followed the holidays that have come down through the ages....Halloween, Christmas, Easter and if one followed the Catholic church you were following even more man made days.

So here I am, I got my sukkah up, decorated with lights and garlands and all kinds of wonderful things and no one to enjoy it but me and my granddaughter, Arrin. She loves to be in it with me. We sit in it and we eat in it.


ARRIN IN THE SUKKAH AS WE WERE DECORATING IT


I have tried to blend my family into these biblical holidays but it is a struggle. I tried to have family dinners and have a time of 'teaching' about each one but it has just not clicked with them. But it all goes back to the old saying.."you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". No, we cannot change people..we cannot make them 'see' truth. When something is as embedded into their psyche as all the man made holidays and the hoopla that goes along with them, then what is one to do? I was ready..I was willing..I desired to be in truth.....but they aren't. They are unwilling to see...or maybe they can't see that all that they have believed in all of their lives is lies from Satan. I know it is a difficult thing but it is not impossible!

My husband is willing to put my sukkah up..he built it for me. He and I went and he bought the items I wanted to decorate with. But he is not willing...not ready to give up the ways of the world and come into the Way of G-d and the blessings that flow from it. He is living in a fantasy..he rides with the devil and thinks that because he went to church as a child and then again as an adult that he is ok.

We observe and celebrate Shabbat each Friday evening...both my daughters and my two granddaughters are at the table as we light the Shabbat candles but it is not enough....not enough.

IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS! It was NEVER enough when in the Christian church and it definitely is not enough now! We MUST be willing to sacrifice ourselves, our time, our energy to Him. It does not mean that we will be called to go to some other country, it does not mean we will be called to start a ministry...but it may mean we will be called to pray, to intercess for others or we may be called to praise and worship Him. BUT we have to start by seeking Him and studying His Word. To come into the understanding of His Way and understanding that it is not the way of the Christian mindset but of the Jewish mindset.

I am discouraged. I thought that things would be different by now. When I began this amazing journey I really thought my family would come into this faith and be as joyous as me. Again, I understand that I cannot make them. I also understand that I allowed forces that were against me to make me stumble and become rebellious. Sometimes we are accustomed to hearing from G-d yet we become so full of ourselves that we then think we hear Him and are doing what is right when we should have waited upon Him and then discerned that we were not hearing from Him at all but from the enemy. WAIT UPON HIM!

I was told to "Go back and spring forward". I keep going back, thinking upon the things that have happened but I have yet to 'spring forward' out of all the things that have happened to change the course of my life. I cannot give up though. I won't give up!

The Messianic Mo'adiym Devotional by Kevin Geoffrey for day four of Sukkot has just amazed me in that it is speaking to ME! Yes ME!

TO STIR YOU UP......."Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and seliction firm, for (by) doing these things, though, (you) already know them and have been established in the present truth. And I think (it is) right, as long as I am in this (earthly) dwelling, to stir you up in reminding you, knowing that soon is the laying aside of my (earthly) dwelling, even as also our Master Yeshua Messiah made plain to me."
KEIFA BEIT (2 PETER) 1:10-14

So, I take a stand! My path is set, He is guiding me, I must keep my ears intune with Him...my eyes ever watchful of any detours or blocks in my road. He is with me and He will show me the way I am to go. I choose to follow Him. I choose to let His light shine within me and then I choose to let it shine for all to see....and if my light shines on others I pray that they see Him and will desire to walk in His light and will choose to follow Him too. I cannot make them but if all they see is the likeness of G-d when they see me then I have followed the path of G-d.