Sunday Sharing: A Spiritual Secret

: (NOTE: The Bearmobile's fixed! More on that below . . . )

"The founder of the China Inland Mission was J. Hudson Taylor, a physician full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, of entire surrender to God and His call, of great self-denial, heartfelt compassion, and rare power in prayer . . ." *

Bear thoughtfully laid down the book at the midway point one recent Sunday afternoon, to take some time to think and pray about what she'd just read. Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret by Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, (Moody Press) was turning out to be filled with much food for thought, despite its faded cover, deeply tanned pages, and slightly musty smell. This condensed biography of Hudson Taylor's missionary outreach to China back in 1853 - 1905 was definitely not something just to be breezed through, all at once, on a single Sunday afternoon.

Bear hadn't known much about Hudson Taylor, except that he was a famous missionary in China and that many people trace the roots of today's tremendous Chinese Christian movement back to him as one of its main founders.

And normally, Bear wouldn't be too interested in a book that was called someone's "Spiritual Secret," because Bear's not much of a believer in spiritual "Secrets" in general, feeling that the Lord has made things pretty clear in the Bible, and is not very secretive at all, for anyone who wants to take the time to sit down and listen to what He has to say by reading His Words.

However, she was certainly interested in reading about any man that could sail off to a place where the Gospel was almost totally unknown, back in the 1800's, and successfully plant churches across a whole huge country, on faith alone. Especially since the times were clearly not easy -- as an excerpt of a letter he wrote soon after his arrival attests (p. 50) . . .

My position is a very difficult one. Dr. Lockhart has taken me to reside with him for the present, as houses are not to be had for love or money . . . No one can live in the city . . . They are fighting now while I write, and the house shakes with the report of cannon.

It is so cold that I can hardly think or hold the pen. . . . Jesus will guide me aright . . . I love the Chinese more than ever. Oh, to be useful among them!

As Bear read the opening chapters of the book, she could see that his trust in the Lord just grew stronger, as circumstance pressed harder upon him. He wrote shortly after, in another letter (p. 51) . . .

What it means to be so far from home, at the seat of war and not able to understand or be understood by the people was fully realized. Their utter wretchedness and misery and my inability to help them or even point them to Jesus powerfully affected me. Satan came in as a flood, but there was One who lifted up a standard against him. Jesus is here, and though unknown to the majority, and uncared-for by many who might know Him, He is present and precious to His own.

He learned the language quickly though, and soon even dyed his hair black and began to wear a Chinese style braid and Chinese style dress in order to be less initmidating to the people he was reaching out to, despite the fact that men of his own society in those days frowned on that type of thing (to say the least). And as Bear flipped the pages of the book, reading descriptions of his daily trials, and challenges, and faith, and outreach to the people (as both a doctor and an evangelist), she soon forgot all about the book's title. Despite wars, riots, sickness, deaths in his family (including death of his wife and a couple of his very young children) . . . onwards he persisted, riding boats down China's waterways on long journeys with short rations -- as a 19th century Apostle Paul.

But then, near the middle of the book, when she least expected it, Bear came upon Hudson Taylor's "secret," and was surprisingly rocked by it.

It was an experience he had in the middle of his missionary years in China that he said totally transformed his life and walk with the Lord (even though he had already been a tremendously fruitful missionary over the years already). On September 4, 1869, he suddenly caught a deeper understanding of what it meant to be part of the Body of Christ; and he writes that he then entered into what he referred to as "The Exchanged Life".

In a letter to his sister he writes (p. 161) . . .

"Nor was this all He showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the Vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured direct into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap, the fulness out of Him! I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but that I am a member of His Body, of His flesh and His bones. The vine is not the root merely, but all -- root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves flowers, fruit . . . Oh my dear sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with the risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ. Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? Or your head be well fed while your body starves? Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, 'It was only your hand and not you that wrote that check.' or 'I can not pay this sum to your hand, but only to your self?' No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the Name of Jesus, (that is, not for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are His members) so long as we keep within the limits of Christ's credit -- a tolerably wide limit! If we ask for anything unscriptural, or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do that. But "if we ask any thing according to his will . . . we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. "

And farther along in the letter adds, (p. 162) . . .

"The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His Will, and His Will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases. So, if God should place me in great perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? No fear that His resources will be unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine -- for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me."

And he relates more about how he realized that he needed to stop focusing so much on his own shortcomings, sins, and failings (always feeling he was falling short in his own efforts of trying to strive towards holiness and unwavering belief), and the need to instead focus much more on the Lord Himself. And he went on and on for pages, writing how he found new rest, new peace, and a new strength for his work in that, and detailing more about it all.

And Bear has found herself praying on that much and asking the Lord to reveal to her more about it. Because she tends herself to get so discouraged with all her own shortcomings, failings, and sins of unbelief in various areas -- frustrated at how easily upset she can get in situations where she should just be resting and trusting the Lord.

In fact, reading that far into the book already helped some, making it a much easier two weeks than it would have been, while waiting to find out what was wrong with her broken Bearmobile, which was stranded in a mechanic's shop in a town miles away from the Den.

Even though Bear knows she doesn't yet understand fully how to enter that rest that Hudson Taylor found (in the midst of his trials and danger in war-torn China and in the midst of risking his life daily in evangelistic outreach), she did catch a glimpse of what he was driving at.

Enough of a glimpse to help much already.

And she's looking forward to reading more of the book this Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Bearmobile got repaired on Friday, finally, and is running "like a top" again, as the mechanic put it. It turned out that some sort of bearing assembly thing-a-mabob that is important to the timing belt froze up completely, and broke, which caused the timing belt to break.

But even though the repair job involved at least three hours of labor, (and likely more), and even though the mechanic towed the car several blocks to his shop; he only charged Bear for two hours labor and parts. Said that he was thankful that Bear had given him plenty of time to work on it, so he could do it between other repair jobs -- so was charging her less. Also said he had been in church a few times with Bear a few years ago (when she hadn't known it), and so had heard a couple of her testimonies (even though Bear hadn't known they'd met before). Said he wanted to help out.

So she felt overwhelmingly blessed, and thankful (to the mechanic, to the Lord, and to all those who prayed and helped these past two weeks in various ways) as she headed out to catch up on her shopping and errands.

Her trusty Bearmobile once again zoomed down the highway, its motor purring happily and steadily.

And she knew Hudson Taylor was right. She knew that he did have a "Spiritual Secret", after all; although in fact, Bear thinks maybe it's a Secret that's no secret at all . . .

But is rather another step in learning to lean on the Lord's power and strength daily -- focusing on His strength, rather than on one's own weakness . . .

A secret that whispers the truth of just how fully each branch in the Body of Christ is a part of the Vine.

"Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" Colossians 1:26-27 (KJV)

Drop by Spiritual Sundays as well, to find links to the whole selection of this week's entries by Christian writers, and/or to add a link of your own and join in the fun! We all welcome comments and discussion! (NOTE: A small percentage of Spiritual Sundays' entries may be by writers of other religions or of the New Age -- Discernment is advised.)

* All indented quotes are from Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret by Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, Moody Press, (Publication date not listed in the book).
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Bear's news and free multi-media Christian resources: Bear's Writing Den

Thanking the Lord

: About 9 pm Thursday night, in stunned amazement (mixed with exhaustion), Bear got up from her computer desk, walked over to the nearest wall, leaned her head against it, and thanked the Lord for a miracle.

"Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord! That is an actual real miracle, and I just acknowledge it was You that did that, Lord."

She dropped to her knees. "That is so incredible. You are so awesome..."

She started walking around the Den, continuing to thank Him, still amazed.

She finally was on the Net with her $70 eBay computer and the free Debian Linux operating system. The Web Browser, after days of giving her "can't be found -- check your Internet connection" message screens, had suddenly switched to the Home Page of Debian's Technical Support Website -- a real live page on the Internet.

To explain why that was a miracle and so shocked the Bear, let's go back to where Bear's last Den post left off about 10 days ago...

At that point, despite having accumulated three modems, she still was unable to get on the Internet, and had narrowed the problem down to either the modem's power supply having a faulty cable, or a cable inside the wall as being faulty. (She only had one modem power supply cable, despite having three modems.)

While waiting for a fourth eBay modem to arrive in the mail (which included a modem power cable as part of the deal) Bear was spending much of her time reading up on Linux, hoping she could use the free Debian Linux operating system and other free software packages on the $70 computer she had also ordered off of eBay, due to arrive any day. (Both her modem connection, and the computer itself, had chosen about the same time to go on the blink in various ways.)

When the eBay modem finally arrived in the mail, she was surprised and happy to see that it looked to be in new condition, despite the fact it was advertised as used. The power cable was even still in its original little box.

And, Hallelujah! A quick test showed that it worked. It successfully connected her old Laptop (which has Windows XP on it) to the Net.

So that problem was solved... which was a tremendous relief after weeks of struggle.

But the Laptop still had its own problems...

So she waited for the $70 computer to arrive, continuing to study Linux operating systems, in preparation for what she was about to attempt.

While waiting, she also ran across an old book called "Building a PC for Dummies", and started reading that, intrigued.

Bear had known almost nothing at all about what a computer was like on the inside. So she was fascinated to discover that the inside parts were just connected to one another with screws and plugs and "ribbon" cables and things, and that they could be removed and interchanged with what looked to be relative ease.

And the book made it sound easy too.

For example, Bear had always thought that replacing a computer's hard drive was a very complex and technical process. She hadn't known that you could just unscrew a few screws and unplug a few wires and pull the thing out. Then put another one in its place.

And it looked like you could even do the same thing with the CD/DVD drives, although that looked slightly more complicated. There was a chapter in the book with pictures, showing how to do it.

Which got Bear to thinking a lot...

She knew, from the $70 computer's photo and description on eBay, that it didn't have a very good CD or DVD drive on it. They were both ROM -- read only -- and neither one could do any recording.

But one of her old dead computers had very lovely CD and DVD drives on it that could both record and play...

Plus, old Zapclunk -- her original Internet computer -- had a 20 GB hard drive that was still likely to be in great condition. His long-term memory had never been any problem at all -- the one component that had always been charming and cooperative in nature and attitude. It had been his 120 MB RAM short term memory and his incredibly slow processor speed that had led to his eventual retirement, making him useless for Internet work.

So Bear began to picture herself performing amazing surgical procedures on her $70 computer, if needed, to help it become more than it had ever hoped to be...

But then she shook her head, put the book aside, and went back to studying Linux, telling herself she was getting too crazy and that it would be best not to destroy what she hoped was going to turn out to be a computer very usable for the Net (with its fast processor), by experimenting on it, using some crazy "For Dummies" book from a Thrift Store as a surgical reference manual...

And she went back to checking the Den's front porch and the nearby Post Office, watching for the computer, which seemed very slow in arriving.

But it finally did arrive, and Bear was most happy to find that it was well padded in bubble wrap, and not broken (like the one that had arrived a few weeks earlier). She hooked it up and saw its initial screen flash on, showing it was actually a working computer, as advertised, even though there was no operating system installed.

She rubbed her paws together joyfully, ready to try out her Linux CD's on it and load the new operating system.

But first, to figure out how to get into the BIOS menu...

About 8 hours later, Debian Linux's Welcome screen came up with reassuringly bright colors (after quite a bit of trial and error on Bear's part, and many adjustments). It was a match! Debian Linux had successfully detected all the computer's hardware components and loaded workable Linux drivers for them, and was even working okay with the computer's video card (which can be a major trip-up point when trying to load a Linux desktop system).

Except there was one problem...

Debian had failed to successfully set up the modem connection basics...

And had given her an "if you think I'm going to get you on the Net, you're out of your mind" type of error message.

Bear frowned.

This did not look good.

She wondered what the problem was.

Maybe Linux hadn't had a generic driver to substitute for her modem's Windows' driver and she was going to need to search the Net for a compatible driver? (She did have some Net access via her old Laptop now, and could do that, possibly).

But was it really a driver problem?

Or had she made an error putting info into the Internet Connections setup screens?

Or something else?

Debian isn't like Windows. It's not built to be so "user friendly", although it is getting more "user friendly" as the years go by. Sometimes, in Linux, you have to type in commands into the Operating System, to tell it how to do things when it gets stuck with something it's not sure about. You have to kind of help it along, giving it step by step instructions.

And Bear, as a total Newbie, was in the dark as to how to do that for this kind of issue. Plus, the menu screens seemed a lot more confusing than Windows' are.

All the regular things (like Word Processing programs, desktop look/feel, etc) are actually very similar to Windows, and even better in some ways. But the Internet Connection screens were more complicated and confusing.

Plus, Bear had learned from her reading that sometimes you had to actually find out from your ISP provider people specific numbers and facts to plug into the menus, if the Operating System couldn't detect the information on its own (like Windows always does).

Was that the problem maybe? Did Bear need to get those numbers and try that?

But what use getting the numbers, when she didn't yet know where to plug the numbers in, or how to do that?

And she knew that it was very unlikely that her ISP technical support person would know anything about Debian. It's not a super common operating system yet.

Plus, if a missing modem driver was the problem, numbers wouldn't help. She'd need to figure out how to install a driver.

She tried fiddling with various things for a couple days, trying to learn as she went.

Eventually, she even found a program on one of her Debian CD's that could be installed that was supposed to help set up Debian to connect to the Net, for those who had Bear's kind of ISP's service (PPPoE).

So she installed that program, and answered all its questions, typing in the commands it told her to, giving the Operating System instructions that were supposed to work.

But it didn't change anything.

Finally, she gave up in frustration and retreated from the computer -- back to reading manuals.

But she tried to look on the bright side.

True, she wasn't on the Net yet. And she didn't have a CD/DVD that could record. But she at least had a very nicely working computer with a free Operating System and lots of free software programs to play with...

But she worried much about the Internet issue... What if she could never get on the Net? What use a nice computer if it wouldn't work on the Net? She didn't want to lay out the money to buy Windows and its related software (and do so repetitively for the rest of her life every time she got a new computer or upgraded). She just couldn't afford to keep doing that.

Besides, she liked Debian lots better than Windows already.

She decided it was worth studying more, to learn how to do this thing...

A few days later, on Wednesday, she figured she had studied enough and was ready to tackle the Internet connection problem again.

And she spent that whole day trying various things to get on the Net.

She decided that it really didn't seem to be a modem driver problem, because all her modem's lights were on. Plus, one of Debian's screens even claimed that a few "packets" had been sent and received.

So why wasn't she on the Net yet?

If not a modem problem (which, after the last weeks, had of course been Bear's first assumption), then what?

She figured out from Help manuals exactly which numbers ("addresses") Debian might want from her ISP provider, and went looking for them on her Laptop. Sure enough, she found the "addresses" for her modem's broadcast address and the ISP's address in her connection settings screen there, and so plugged those numbers into Debian's menus.

Debian was not happy with that though.

It stopped claiming that packets were being sent, and spitefully turned off her modem's lights to make its attitude extra clear on the issue.

So she tried the program that was supposed to configure PPPoE connections again -- following its directions very carefully.

No luck there either.

By Thursday afternoon she got desperate enough to actually call her Internet Service Provider's technical support line, (although she had understandably lost confidence in them after they had told her she needed a new modem with her old computer when it was clearly a cable she needed.)

The young man who answered her call did nothing to increase her confidence in them when he said, "What did you say the name of the Operating System you're trying to use is?"

"Debian Linux."

"Never heard of it. We don't support that operating system."

"Well I figured that. But just please answer me a few questions here... What's my IP address and my Subnet Mask?"

"I don't know. Are you trying to set up your email?"

"No. I'm just trying to get on the Net! Do you show my modem as being connected over there?"

"Uh... Yeah. It's registering. But you're not on the Net."

"Yeah. I noticed that, all right. But if my modem's registering over at your office, then the driver on it has to be working. We can at least assume that, right?"

"Uh... I don't know. It seems to be registering though."

Bear sighed as the conversation continued on in similar fashion. The young man was trying to help, but was clearly in waters way over his head, just as Bear was. And he kept repeating that they "don't support Debian".

Finally she told him she would do some more research and get back to him.

He seemed thankful to hang up.

By then she was truly exhausted. (She'd overdone a Den cleaning project that day too, and was sore from "head to paw", the pain and fatigue adding to her sense of hopelessness over the computer issue.)

It had been a long month. Or was it more than a month now since the computer problems had started? She wasn't sure.

All she knew was that she was truly and totally stumped, and that it was going to take a miracle to get her on the Net with the new computer anytime soon.

So she went to more prayer. And she told God she was definitely, absolutely, totally stumped, and really needed to get on the Net, and needed "revelation knowledge" on the issue, because she was at an end of her resources. And "please get me on the Net".

It was an hour or two later, while doing dishes, that an image of herself typing something into Debian's command terminal window popped into mind. She could see the screen in her mind's eye as if she were typing at that very moment.

She saw herself typing her User access name for her ISP after the prompt: "Username" on the command line...

And she suddenly realized that maybe she shouldn't have typed it after the prompt, like you do in Windows.

It suddenly came to her that Debian might be different that way. What if she erased the prompt "Username" and replaced it with her info? (Instead of putting her info after it?)

Suddenly she was convinced that might be worth a try, and went back to the add-on program that was supposed to help her configure the Operating System for a PPPoE type account.

And she replaced "Username" rather than typing after it.

And instantly she was on the Net, staring in amazement at a real live website in her browser's window.

Which is when she walked over, leaned her head against the wall, and started thanking God for a miracle.

Then, hardly able to stand, she went to bed and fell asleep.

It was ten minutes after midnight when she woke up, feeling somewhat better, and had a sudden urge to try and pull the CD and DVD drives from the new computer and put in the better ones from one of her dead computers.

Naturally, she tried to talk herself out of it. That was too crazy even to consider.

Messing with the new computer when it was finally working?

Risk breaking it?

At midnight?

She tried to go back to sleep.

But couldn't seem to shake the idea.

Muttering about the sheer lunacy of the whole project, she pulled herself out of bed, turned on the light, and started re-reading the chapter in the "Building a PC for Dummies" book.

By 1 a.m., she had two computers on the Den's living room floor, with their guts open.

By 2:30 a.m., after much sweat and worry, she had made the exchange. There were a couple of wires involved the book hadn't told her about, and that concerned her deeply. But she had disconnected the wires carefully on the first computer and made sure to reconnect them in exactly the same places and in the same order (and direction) on the second computer and was hoping for the best.

By 3:00 a.m., she had tested the new drives with Debian and discovered that, although they worked, Debian thought that it now had two CD drives and two DVD drives, and its programs couldn't figure out which drives to actually use.

It kept trying to use the drives that were no longer installed. And it bombarded Bear with many irritated error messages, demanding its missing CD and DVD drives back.

So she decided to erase the whole Debian operating system and reinstall it fresh, hoping that it would recognize that it only had one of each drive, when it configured itself during reinstallation.

6 a.m. -- Debian came up again, reinstalled, and now understanding that it only had one CD drive and one DVD drive, and apparently was ready to cope with that fact in an adult manner.

6:30 a.m. -- Bear was back on the Net, with a fully operating computer and free operating system, including rewritable DVD and CD drives.

There were still a few bugs in the system, but of a minor nature, that could get worked out over time.

The whole thing was up, running, and ready to roll.

Soon, Bear would be back at the online Den, writing again.

She thanked the Lord more...

For miracles in the night...

And went back to bed, an exhausted but happy bear.

Bear sends thanks also to those who have been praying for the Bear during these weeks!

Our God is an Awesome God.
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Bear's news and free multi-media Christian resources: Bear's Writing Den

Back from Vacation + Some Changes

: Well, Bear had a good vacation/prayer break. She sends Big Bear Thanks to everyone who prayed for her during her week of seeking the Lord's direction on many major life issues. The Lord was most gracious to the Bear, and she feels much more settled and at peace. Goals and direction have been reevaluatated and clarified, and some tough decisions made.

A few of those decisions will minorly affect the Writing Den.

Bear has many goals in her writing, in general. The main priority always, is best summed up in a phrase that has almost become a slogan in some chruches -- "To know Jesus, and to make Jesus known." That's highest priority when Bear writes -- that it draws her closer to the Lord, and hopefully also witnesses to others in various ways concerning Him.

A second goal in writing is to develop writing skills and learn to write better... to continue to grow as a writer. A third goal is to use writing as a vehicle for fellowship with people. And a fourth goal is to eventually start bringing in some money through the sale of some of Bear's writing pieces.

Balancing all those goals can be somewhat tricky. And the goal to earn money has been the least of the concerns so far. Money making has usually been a goal on the distant horizon, to pursue more after the other three goals were well along their way, type of vision... something to prioritize
after writing skills improve more, for example. However, Bear has some financial needs which are not so subtly reminding her to pay somewhat more attention to the money making angle.

Also, a fifth goal has snuck into the picture, more and more lately...

Bear is realizing that she's spending much too much time on the computer again. Computers are most wonderful bear-tools, and are especially useful for writing bears. But Bear has always had a tendancy to go overboard concerning their use. Indeed, she has recognized this tendancy in the past, and even worked with it and stomped it down somewhat, at various times. But in all the fun and joy of finding FaithWriters a few months ago, and in starting up the Writing Den, and in just plain old having a good time online, writing... Bear was recently brought up hard against the realization that the computer was becoming more and more her whole life. Plus, health problems related to overuse of the computer were steadily rearing their ugly heads again.

In fact, Bears are particularly sensitive to computer-triggered health problems. Moreso, even than the general population. So, when Bear gets too computer crazed, it's even more serious than it would be for others.

So recent computer craziness was one of the things that Bear was praying on also, and trying to balance.

She does not want to compromise the other goals by making writing-for-money a higher priority than it has been. But, she wants to keep the money issue much more in mind, and work to weave that in with the other goals in a stronger way.

For example, originally when Bear started contributing to the Friday Fiction loop and posting that here at the Den, she was editing an old novel for teenagers that she had written some years back, and was planning on posting regular installments of that as she edited them, and to get feedback that way, and eventually produce a finished book. It's a book she has long had on her heart, and which she has much enjoyed working on.

However, the cold realities of a writer's life have had to be taken into consideration. Reality is, it's very, very hard for a new writer to sell a book, when she has not yet sold enough shorter pieces to demonstrate proof of professional ability. Everyone wants to write a book. And book writing is probably the most competitive field of all, when it comes to making a sale. It's much easier to make a book sale after having already sold a bunch of shorter pieces to magazines and small publications. Because publishers and agents of books usually want some proof that the writer can actually produce saleable copy before they're going to mess with looking over a book-length manuscript. There are some exceptions to that. And there are always the wonderful stories of authors who miraculously got published with their first novel and no writing experience at all; and made a million dollars at it. But needless to say, that's pretty rare, and Bear's not banking on that to happen with her.

So, although novel writing can be more fun in some ways than shorter pieces are, it seems a much saner approach (with the money issue in view) to set the book aside for now. Bear needs to concentrate on short stories and shorter pieces that are more likely to have a chance of selling for a writer at her stage -- with only some sales under her belt at this point already. Likely the novels will have their day and season -- but that season is not now. So Bear's going to devote the Friday Fiction to short pieces, and drop the novel serial for now.

Tackle it Tuesday has also been fun, and is a good exercise in writing extremely short greeting card type material in response to a given prompt. However, Bear's decided to stop spending her time at that, even though fun, and start to concentrate on writing actual Christian Greeting Cards for submission to editors (which she'll not be posting at the Den). So, instead of continuning with Tackle it Tuesday, she's now going to shift over to what is known as Word Filled Wednesday.

Word Filled Wednesday is similar to Friday Fiction in one way. It's a loop/meme that people on various websites and blogs post for each week. Basically, each person chooses a Scripture quote that the Lord has laid on her heart for the week -- usually just one verse -- and selects a photo or piece of artwork of some sort to post with it, that she feels represents something the Lord is speaking to her heart about. She can leave it at just that, or go ahead and add any of her own writing: whether it be a poem, or devotional, or just a general observation. Then she posts the link to her website at a central website where all the links are posted. Anyone that goes to that central website can then browse all the entries for the week, same as for Friday Fiction. And people comment on one another's contributions, to some extent. So it's a good vehicle for taking in the Word in fellowship with the body of Christ, as well as sharing and building up in writing. It fits in well with all of Bear's writing goals. Plus, she can use it as a place to learn to write devotionals that can later be submitted to magazines and Sunday School papers that sell that type of thing.

Bear is still praying concerning Sunday Happenings, and what to do about that. So far, she's always used a video, or a recording, or a playlist of videos as the central element in it. She's culled the best of the Web basically, in ministry to herself, as well as in sharing here at the Den. And that's been extremely valuable for Bear. However, it has taken a lot of hours of browsing YouTube videos and MP3 recordings, and, in order to cut back on the time spent on computer, Bear is thinking it likely that she needs to cut back on that element of it quite a bit. So it may be that videos and recordings will appear in that slot less often, although likely they'll still appear there some. It may become more straight writing. There may even be some Sundays when nothing appears at all there. Again, Bear's still praying on that.

The Writing Challenge over at FaithWriters is excellent fellowship, an excellent source of feedback, and an excellent tool for developing writing skills. However, although Bear is still keeping her goal to do 40 Writing Challenges (currently with 8 finished), she's going to cut back to participating every other week instead of weekly. She wants to free up some time to work more on short stories for some Christian Children's Magazines.

So the Writing Den will basically continue on as always, and continue to build up in various ways as time goes on. It's just a minor shifting and adjusting in order to balance priorities a little bit better. Bear will actually be spending more hours writing rather than less. And she has cleared the way to do that by some strategic juggling of life tasks this past week. She also hopes to gain some more time for writing, by doing a bit less general frolicking, surfing, and browsing on the computer in undirected ways.

Plus, she'll be working to shift more and more of her writing time to composing and editing away from the computer. She also wants to do more of her research, reading, emails, and critiques on other people's writing pieces (which is part of Writing Challenge, Friday Fiction, and Word Filled Wednesday participation), away from the computer.

Bear has tussled with this issue many times in the past, and so has already developed some alternative systems to computer. She has experimented with writing by using digital voice recorders, by dictating into the recorder. She's also experimented with writing on various other gadgets (PDA's, electronic keyboards, etc) that have the capability to upload material to the computer once the writing piece is finished. In fact, many of the gadgets that Bear has experimented with in the past (but not really continued with consistently) are still here, lying around the Den, (in some of the rooms not visible to public view). And Bear is going to pull those old tools out, dust them off, and give using them another whirl. Plus, she's going to add in some new tools that she feels the Lord is leading her about, that should be of help.

The reason she has never really consistently used those tools before is that it's very hard to change habits from writing in one way (using one tool), over to writing using another tool. For example, there are still people who love to write using a pen and spiral notebook, who produce their best writing that way. They just copy it over to the computer when finished in order to print it or submit it. It just works for them better than any other way. And they're more creative that way because it's what they're comfortable with and is what they're used to. Bear is most comfortable with, most creative with, and most used to the computer keyboard. And it is tough to shift over and learn new habits. However, Bear is determined this time, to try and push through, and actually accomplish that changeover if at all possible because of the health benefits to be gained. Plus, Bear's hope is that, not only will she gain good health benefits, but she'll also increase writing productivity in general, and gain much freedom in her writing worklife.

For example, Robert Heinlein, a very prolific Science Fiction author back in the '50's and '60's wrote incredibly productively and well by dictating into a tape recorder and having his secretary transcribe it when he was done. Unfortunately, Bear does not have a secretary, which Bear thinks is kind of a sad thing, as having one would be pretty convenient. Bears hardly ever have secretaries though, and it seems to her unlikely she'll get one any time soon. However, Bear does have digital recorders on hand, and has some practice at using them to produce basic emails, and other simple writing copy. So she's going to take another try at learning to write regular pieces of writing via dictation.

In fact, she's writing this very Post via dictation even now. And she plans to type it into her PDA when she's finished, using the PDA's attachable keyboard, and then sync it to the computer, uploading it for posting at the Den. It takes more time to do it that way right now, because Bear is slow and awkward at it. But, in the longrun, if a writer can get the hang of it, and get into the habit of it, it can turn out to be an incredibly productive way of writing. And an incredibly flexible way of writing. (And although Bear may never get a secretary to do her transcribing for her, she might someday be able to afford a fast enough computer to use a dictation program with, which can turn recorded words to written ones almost as well as some of the old fashioned secretaries could.)

It's a method of writing that goes anywhere. Digital recorders are small enough to fit easily in a pocket, freeing a writer to write at their local park, or (when three in the morning inspiration hits) in total darkness, or wherever one might want to write. The writer doesn't have to be hunched over a glowing computer screen for hours on end to get the same results.

Bear's computer syncs with her PDA and downloads all her emails to the PDA with just the press of a button. She can read emails on the PDA and type responses using the PDA, then upload them back to the email program on the next sync to be automatically mailed out.

Bear actually even found a program last week that enables her PDA to read text files out loud to her with a computerized voice. It's a text-to-speech reader that actually works on the PDA. Bear has used these before on the computer and found them incredibly helpful, but had no idea that there was one that would work on her tiny PDA. She bought it in an instant, for $40, and has it up and working. So now she can copy anything she wants to read, using cut and paste on the computer, put it in a text file, and send that file to her PDA, and then listen to it being read out loud to her, anywhere she wants to. For example, when reading the Friday Fiction pieces other writers post each week, to comment on... Instead of reading them each week at the computer, all she needs to do is copy them into a text file and sync the PDA. Then she can listen to them read aloud to her from the PDA in her pocket, while doing dishes or other housework. She can make her comment on each piece into a digital recorder harbored in her other pocket. And then just post the comments back on the various websites next time she's on the computer to give the authors feedback. That's not only going to save her quite a bit of time reading and commenting, but will cut back on the use of the computer for that particular task, majorly.

Those are just a few examples of all sorts of tricks and alternatives that can be used to get away from the actual computer while still making use of many of its benefits and good points.

However, there's a lot of work involved in the change-over and some frustrations in establishing new habits and new ways of working. But Bear thinks it will be well worth it in the longrun. So she's going to give it another try, and see if she can succeed better at it than she has in the past.

Bear won't yet be back at FaithWriters much at all this week, and will not do the Writing Challenge this particular week. She still has much work to do setting things up more for that kind of a changeover, and in working at a few of the other changes that she feels laid upon her heart to pursue after this last week of prayer. However, she's hoping to have things up and rolling along more normally after Memorial day weekend. And she will be around the Den regularly this week also. She already has a photo and idea for Word Filled Wednesday, and is hoping to get that first entry in tomorrow. Although she doesn't expect to produce anything new for this week's Friday Fiction, she's planning on pulling out an old piece from years gone by and editing that. So will be participating in that as well. And already has an idea for Sunday Happenings for this week.

Again, Bear thanks everyone who has prayed for her during the week prayer break she took, and is thanking the Lord above all. His Mercies truly are new every morning. And Bear feels refreshed and ready to roll.
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Bear's news and free multi-media Christian resources: Bear's Writing Den

Bear's PDA metamorphoses into a super duper writing machine

Bear has had a couple very rough days of illness, in bed mainly. But people were praying for the Bear, and she is so thankful. The Lord lifted her in the midst of the illness, and encouraged her in many ways. Plus, she got quite a bit of work done, even while stuck in bed, through His Grace.

In fact, she learned a lot more about how to use her little PDA to good advantage for writing, in times like those. She has an old Treo cell phone PDA that she got cheap off the Internet a couple years back, long after this particular model of Treo went out of style. She's never even had the cell phone part connected to a service. But it has been a very handy gadget for many things -- almost like a tiny portable computer. And she picked up a foldable keyboard for it some months ago, on sale also, although she hadn't gotten around to using that part for anything yet.

Bear has a laptop (even after she accidentally threw a cup of water on its keyboard last week), and had already set that up on a TV tray type of table right next to the bed, which helped a lot. But much of the time she was too tired to prop herself up enough to use it. It's heavy, and really is too awkward to use for long, directly in bed.

And she was frustrated and bored, wishing she could work on the Writing Challenge for the week, and other projects.

That's when she remembered the Treo's keyboard, and started playing around with it. It turned out to be perfect for typing in bed -- super light weight -- and sat nicely on a clip board she had on hand. Plus, the Treo has Pocket Word on it. So she got about half of the Challenge entry written up that way.

But then she remembered something she had tried out on one of the more ancient PDA's that she had had about 6 years ago. It was a piece of programming software that causes a little 9 square grid to pop up on the screen that has letters on it. All 26 letters of the alphabet (and most the punctuation symbols) fit on various locations in the 9 squares -- some around the corners of the squares, some at the sides, and some in the middle. If you tap the square, it prints the letter in the middle. If you slide your stylus to one corner of a square, it'll print the letter in that corner. Etc.

So she looked it up on the Net again, because she remembered it had been helpful when she had it on her older gadget. And was happy to find it's still available. It's called "MessageEase". And it works on cell phones of many sorts, and regular computers, and PDAs of almost all sorts. It works basically like the regular screen-popup keyboard does on most PDA's, but the grid with only 9 squares is larger and much easier to type faster on, with the stylus, than the tiny QWERTY keyboard that normally pops up on screen. Some people can type 50+ words a minute on MessageEase even.

By last evening, Bear had it downloaded to her Treo, and was practicing, starting to get the hang of it again. By this afternoon, she was up to about 20 words a minute, typing on it, and was able to finish the draft of the Challenge entry with even more ease, that way, than by using the keyboard. It was wonderful, because she could just turn off the PDA when she needed a break, and then when she picked it up later, and turned it back on again, the Pocket Word document was still on screen, right where she'd left off.

And Bear found that she really loves that way of writing and re-writing. It's much more relaxing than trying to do it all at once at the computer, yet she felt that the quality was just as good, or better than, while sitting at the computer. Pocket Word even has a Word Count function in it, so she could tell if she was going over the allowed number of words for the Challenge (which she was, as usual), and could edit the Word Count back down to the proper limits.

MessageEase was, of course, slower than the computer, although while using the PDA's actual external keyboard, she was able to type almost as fast as at the computer's keyboard.

But it was so much more relaxing, it convinced Bear to continue to experiment with it more in future, even while not sick. Once she synced the Treo to the computer this evening, when finally feeling well enough to sit up again for awhile, all she needed to do was a bit of final polishing and a double check of the Word Count (which exactly matched Pocket Word's), and she was set to submit the entry.

So she's thanking the Lord much for what turned out to be one of her most interesting and uplifting sick times ever.
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Bear's news and free multi-media Christian resources: Bear's Writing Den

God smiled at Bear + Changing the time order of posts

Late Afternoon
God smiled at Bear

Bear is sooo excited. And just has to stop and praise our Most Awesome God Most High!  Because this morning God did something that SO illustrated His Presence to Bear, that she's just hopping around in excitement and thankfulness.

Bear worked all night on the Den again last night, and although she made some progress, as noted in the last post, and was happy about that, she was starting to think she had gone absolutely Bear crazy.  She's still fighting to recover from a case of anemia, and yet this past week she has only gotten 3 to 4 hours of sleep every 24 hours, and sometimes less than that, even. 

It's like what happens to Bear when she drinks coffee.  (She's one of those bears who coffee has a really overblown stimulating effect on -- to say the least, and can be up a couple of days straight if she drinks one cup of it.)   But Bear hasn't been drinking any coffee at all.  Well, except for 1/3 cup yesterday -- but that was the first all week. 

Yet she's been wide awake almost all the time this past week, as if she was on coffee.  And in the midst of a case of anemia.  (Although the anemia has been steadily improving, thankfully.)  It's like her body suddenly flipped out of "anemia mode" into "coffee mode" with no coffee in sight, and no other apparent cause to account for such a change.

So this morning, when finally getting to bed, after another long night of trying to make Blogger do things it's not really designed to do, Bear was thinking that she would be wiser to dump the whole thing.

And why would a Bear really want a blog anyway?  She was reminding herself she must have better things to do with her time than setting up some crazy blog that was probably going to take more time than it was worth to maintain and run anyway.  And what was the point?  And she was likely damaging her health with all this blog craziness!  And she must have gone absolutely looney. 

To sum it up, Bear was pretty depressed.  She went to sleep repenting to the Lord for getting things out of perspective and wishing she was a better Cub to Him than she is.

And she unplugged all the telephones and turned off the cell, and made plans not to touch the Blog for days, and promised herself when she did come back to it, she'd leave out the extras for now, and just post Blog posts.  And get sane.  And stop all this nonsense.  And she planned to sleep for about 24 hours straight, and then get up and seek the Lord in prayer for more stability and logical walk in the future, and for basic sanity.

But then she woke up just four hours later, and before her eyes were fully open, she suddenly knew what to do to set up a blank page template that would match the Den's Template Background, that she could use to host additional web pages on another host, and connect them back to the blog/Den in Blogger, making it one large website. 

Bear's had a smattering of HTML language learning in the past, and knew some of the most basic things about coding for a basic page.  But only a smattering -- not enough to handle frames, and sidebars, and gadgets, and widgets, and not even much text formatting stuff.

Yet there was suddenly revelation, like a shaft of sunlight, bright in the midst of HTML ignorance and blog confusion and darkness -- she got out of bed, walked to the computer, turned on the screen and had the first step completed, before fully getting her eyes open.  Then after the first step, she suddenly knew how to look up information on the Web to get help to finish the second step -- knew what the second step should be and how to look up the details.  And so with the third.  And the fourth.  And it all fell together perfectly, with no glitches, one step after another. 

And before Bear knew what had hit her, she had a blank page template setup with the Lighthouse background on it, and buttons on it to navigate back to the main Den with . . . and she knew how to put gadgets and widgets in it -- so she can insert both text and any blogger gadget (like videos, images, link lists, etc.)  It took a couple of hours, but just all fell together perfectly.

And she tested it out, and it works.  (And that's with just using Notepad for her html document "software" and an FTP program to upload it onto the Web with.  Although she's thinking about looking for a cheap older version of Microsoft Front Page, which would be very helpful in the longrun.  She was able to do it with the bare bones basics today.)

And then, when she was trying to take in the fact that God had given her "wisdom" suddenly on something, so startling and like never before in her life -- just showing her something so completely and suddenly like that that she couldn't do on her own or with her own knowledge . . . just when she was coming out of shock and starting to thank Him for that . . . she suddenly had another revelation, which, if it works, shows her how to set up as many rooms as she wants to, including SUB ROOMS, including links to various pages from within the SUB ROOMS.  (For example, the main Worship Room could have three smaller rooms within it:  Teenage Worship; Kids Worship; Adult Worship.  And then the Adult Worship could be further subdivided with links to various pages in it's sidebar to access various worship Video Players -- like one for hymns, one for instrumental, etc) 

Bear doesn't know for sure if that last revelation will work or not yet.  And she's going to plug the phone back in and get back to normal life for awhile again before trying it out.  And hopefully get some more sleep first as well.

But she's recorded step by step instructions on how to do it, and thinks it very likely will work, considering the way the other stuff worked so well.  Plus, it makes sense to her.

She thinks she's beginning to know how Daniel felt when he and his friends prayed for revelation about the King's dream to avoid getting killed in Daniel, Chapter Two. (The King had sent out a decree to kill all of them and any of his other advisors because they couldn't tell him what he had dreamed the night before, so Daniel went and talked the problem over with his friends). . .  "¹⁷Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:

 ¹⁸That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

 ¹⁹Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.

 ²⁰Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his:

 ²¹And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:

 ²²He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

 ²³I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter.

 ²⁴Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.

 ²⁵Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation.

 ²⁶The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?

 ²⁷Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;

 ²⁸But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these; (Daniel 2:17-28, King James Version)"

That's what it felt like to Bear today -- "a secret revealed unto Bear in a night vision" -- which has never really happened to Bear before -- and Bear is so thankful to know she's not totally crazy to be trying to put together a Writing Blog and Worship/Christian Resource website after all -- it looks to her like, since God's giving her sudden wisdom on it, He's most likely in favor of the whole project -- and Bear thanks the Lord, Most High . . . "I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee".  And Bear thanks anyone who has prayed for her in all this.  God answers.  God is awesome.  :-)

Late Night
Changing the time order of the posts

Bear is going to change things around so things post in better time order, in her journal here, than they have been.  Right now, everything posts in normal "blog time" order.  Meaning that the most recent post made always goes on top.  That's not a bad system for people who only post once a day, but is confusing to Bear when she reads back in her journal, because she posts more than once a day, often.

So, say on a Saturday, she posts three times in the day.  It comes out with the post she did at night, coming out on top, right under "Saturday".  Which would be OK.  But when a person gets to the end of reading that post, they feel like they're done with Saturday -- because that's the post that had Saturday displayed.  The other two posts that were also made on Saturday come out underneath, but don't have Saturday displayed on the top of each of them, and it makes the whole thing confusing.

So Bear is going to change the time of day on old posts, so they post in right order.  And then she's going to stop posting more than once a day -- just make a DRAFT of each post during the day if she thinks she's going to post more than once that day -- and then save it all as one post.  So a person can read all of Saturday's posts, for example, from top to bottom in logical order, like in a real-life journal.