Third Thursday Thoughts: Combat Zone

  Do you sometimes feel like you are living in a combat zone? Are enemies of this life attacking you from every direction at the same time? One thing happens and before that is fixed or taken care of, something else slams you over the head?
I admit that some days feel that way. Living in an RV could get me down quick if I let it, waiting for God's timing for the next step of our new "re-firement" assignment. Even writing this monthly blog is not the easiest thing to do. When I had a house, I would enter my quiet writing nook (after Dennis left for school…) where I was surrounded by all my favorite books and "library and bookish" things. I could sit down in my comfy office chair before my nice big PC monitor, have my "Kingdom Corner" time, and then the writing would flow. I now have to retrieve my laptop from behind the wooden box that contains all the necessary things that used to be in and on my desk in the dining room, set up the laptop, mouse and mouse pad, plug it all in, and try to fit  myself behind the one corner of our small kitchen table that is free of other stuff, and beside the "desk box" on the other end of the bench seat! I've learned to be very creative as far as space is concerned. The process can feel like a battle when I know a blog or piece of writing is due. But because I love to write, share with you what the Lord has put on my heart, and I know that writing is my calling at this season in my life, I will fight to make it happen…sooner or later anyway.

I record the titles of the books I am reading in the "Reading Nook" section of my website. (Click on the picture of the little girl sitting in the big Tresia-colors chair at the bottom of my homepage.) I try to read a variety of books. Last year I read 47. I list my favorites on this page. I just finished reading a book by Rick Renner, titled "Life in the Combat Zone." In writing the "Trinity Tales of Tresia" series, I used another of his books, "Dressed to Kill," and this was a great follow-up to that one, both on the Armor of God. If you want an in-depth study on the weapons of spiritual warfare that are ours, I highly recommend both these books. Rick also gave me a boost as a writer who has dealt with rejection from publishers and even tougher, readers. These two paragraphs from "Combat Zone" give hope to anyone who has experienced rejection and doubt about what God has called and anointed them to do:

            "When rejection has hit you over the over on many different occasions, the temptation for you might be to withdraw. But this is Satan's strategy to keep you out of the field! He wants to keep you and the anointing of God on your life away from the saints.
            There is nothing more powerful than the anointing being passed to others through our lives. Regardless of the spiritual climate or the difficulty of the hour, we must be directly, personally involved when it comes to planting the Gospel seed into the hearts of men."

The scripture about the Armor of God is found in Ephesians 6: 11-18. I've heard those verses since I was a kid in Sunday School. I memorized that passage early, but I wish I had realized as a child, how important they are. It is my desire and prayer that the children (and parents, grandparents, and other adults,) who read these books will have a better understanding of how a "most remarkable hat," a "quite extraordinary umbrella," and a "perfectly magnificent cane," are transformed through story into God's Helmet of Salvation, Shield of Faith, and Sword of the Spirit. And how even a child has been given the authority to use this armor as they grow up in the Combat Zone of life.
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