Just follow the rules and nobody gets hurt

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

Help, Lord. The day has barely dawned and already I called someone on the freeway an A– (I bet you can fill in the blank)

He was clearly not following the rules. He was supposed to wait his turn but he thought he could sneak past on the right.

Everywhere you go, people are breaking the rules. Taking shortcuts, cutting corners. Cheating. It’s a worldwide epidemic. And just about every problem you can think of can be traced back to this one thing.

Someone wasn’t following the rules.

My water heater sprung a leak because the installer used cheap connections and the wrong piping. It was okay…….we were watching it. Then one morning there was a river in the backyard and now we are walking on a floor that is warped due to water damage underneath.

He thought he could cut corners.

My internet has been down for 2 weeks due to someone switching lines at the clubhouse. (We think) It was working great, and then the cable people were working on the box and it all went bad. You could hear the static in the line. We found out yesterday that if they find a line that is good (ours) they switch it with a line that is not good. Since we had our land-line disconnected they probably thought no one was using it and that’s when they swapped it with someone else’s.

At least, that is what we think happened. All evidence is pointing in that direction.

Someone took a shortcut. Instead of installing a new line they stole someone else’s.

Not following the rules, clearly.

God gave Adam and Eve one rule and one only.

Do NOT eat from that tree. “You can have every other plant,” He said. There were probably hundreds, thousands to choose from. Every kind of luscious fruit or vegetable you could ever want, desire, dream of. But there was something about that one. And I have a feeling they tasted much better than what we get now.

But that tree, there was just something about it that was so attractive. It was forbidden. It was there. That low hanging branch was just too good to pass up. It looked better than all the others. And there was that beautiful creature with the smooth voice that sounded like one of those guys on the late night Jazz station that made it even more appealing. He sounded so right…..so logical.

Then there were those 10 other rules.

Turns out we weren’t any better at following those either.

But thanks be to God. In His wisdom, He knew He needed to show us how utterly we fail without Him.

That part is still true today. I fail everywhere I turn. I disappoint people and myself every single day and so does that guy on the freeway. He fails too.

Maybe he was late for work. Maybe he just made a hasty mistake.

Maybe we all need to cut each other some slack. The same slack God used for us all.

Help me God, to be more patient. To learn to extend more grace. Thank you for loving us all and sending a solution to our universal problem. He followed all the rules perfectly because He knew we never could.

Thank you Jesus.

Short posts these days friends…..until I get my internet back at home. I am posting on the fly.

Why it’s good to take a break from the computer

Trying to keep up with all the activities associated with blogging and social media sometimes makes me feel as worn out as this woman on the bench. Sometimes I pull away voluntarily, but sometimes, like recently it’s a forced break due to circumstances beyond my control.

After disconnecting the land-line, we decided to have another more improved line installed for internet access only. It won’t be installed until Monday. So…….I have been sitting it out from the sidelines. I have posted a few times from work but at home I have only been dipping in and out, via my phone.

It all gets so exhausting. And sometimes I look at the Facebook ticker tape and it looks so darn loud and busy, almost as if it’s screaming at me. That’s when I know I need to take a break.

So I have been doing some other things instead. I have been taking bike rides, and I even wrote out some note cards for people just because.

I have been observing, a lot.

I talked to my Aunt last light instead of getting on the computer and we laughed over the phone about things going on in her life and mine. I could hear that she really appreciated the call, and I was blessed too. She amazes me. At 80 she sounds as young as she did at 60. She goes to the rest home three times a day to see her husband who will never come out. She calls it her part-time job and it makes her happy to be there for him.

She has a lot of courage. My Mom says when she was a girl she refused to ride the bus to school so my Grandpa bought her a Victory bike and she braved mean country dogs that chased her. She rode for miles to and from school. She had her tonsils out with no anesthesia, and she is a breast cancer survivor.

We talked of Heaven and how we will all be together once again, and whole……..and how He will wipe our tears away forever. No more cancer, no more dementia, or Alzheimer’s, or death.

Or computers, I guess.

Somehow I don’t think I will miss it then.

photo courtesy of creative commons, some rights reserved.

Rediscovering an old friend

This weekend, among other things, I went on a bike ride. I felt like I got an old friend back. Maybe it was my imagination but I felt like the bike was happy too, after being locked up in a dark storage unit for so long. I never realized how much I missed it. It’s kind of like low-level flying, and you can cover so much more ground gliding than walking.

Before long, I lost myself in the rhythm and bump of the tires going over the road, hitting the cracks in the sidewalk.

It’s kind of like meditation on wheels.

I rode around in the neighboring park…..it’s always good to see how the other part of the world lives.

I got some waves and some good mornings from people doing outside things, enjoying the morning air. I introduced myself to the neighborhood feral cat. I know he was feral because he watched me with interest but then hid behind a shrub when I got too close. I named him “Smudge” for the gray blotch he had right below his (or her) nose. I will watch for him next time I am over there.

As I relaxed into the rubber tire rhythm, memories washed over me of other rides I have taken throughout my life. We have a long history, bikes and I. They were part of our culture, back in the day. For a long time our family only had one car, so we got to know our bikes really well.

I learned on an ugly spray-painted hand-me-down that belonged to my cousin. Then, the magic year I turned 10, I got a bright blue Schwinn all my own. I still remember that first magic ride on Christmas morning. I have a picture somewhere, a side view of my snaggle-toothed smile as I cruised down the driveway, my new synthetic white fur coat with the silver buttons flapping in the cold air.

We were buddies that bike and I and I got to know every rattle and squeak intimately. I felt like it got to know me too.

When I was in Junior High I got a sleek, Gitane ten-speed. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had chosen a brilliant metallic aqua-marine blue and when it glinted in the sun, it took my breath away. My friends and I rode in a herd, all over town. Most days I rode it to school. All the way into High School, in fact. (No, I didn’t have a car), most kids didn’t back then.

I could ride hands free on that bike, steering with a slight lean in whatever direction I wanted to go.

When I got that bike, my Mom inherited the blue Schwinn. Oftentimes, it was her only mode of transportation. I still remember her riding off to the store with her purse hanging from the handlebars, and every so often, one of the smaller kids she watched riding in the basket.

Don’t act so shocked. Times were different then, we didn’t wear helmets either.

We also took our bikes camping in Yosemite and even now when I ride, I can close my eyes and hear the echoeing cries of Stellar’s Jays as I breezed along, ducking for low hanging pines. I was always so excited for those tires to hit the ground, so I could explore and reintroduce myself to the trails I knew so well.

For those moments, I felt like God had given that particular stretch of earth to me as a gift.

When the mountain biking craze hit back in the early nineties, I got a special Birthday gift, a Raleigh cross- over mountain, cruising bike. And yes, I wore the geeky helmet and the padded bicycle shorts.

That’s the bike I took when E and I did the Tour Le San Francisco bike run. Now that was an adventure. There was every genre of rider and bike you can imagine, from old clunkers with boom-boxes bungied to the racks playing opera, to high-speed power racers who did the ride once to warm up and again just for fun.

And there were several people and groups in costume. It was San Francisco after all.

The serious racers whizzed by like greyhounds while the rest of us concentrated on not falling into each other and sucking air on the hills. They closed down part of the city for that race, and I’ll never forget riding through the winding streets of San Francisco and all those bikes spilling out onto the Pacific Coast Highway, the ocean opening up before us.

That view alone made laboring up all those hills worthwhile.

It’s that same bike I am riding all these years later. It has a few nicks and scars but to me it’s just as beautiful as the day I brought it home from the shop. And each time I ride it, whether it’s just to get the mail or around the block, all those other rides and memories come right along with me.

Friends forever.

The Gift

“Each day of life is a glorious gift, but so few people know to live within the confines of today. Much of their energy for abundant living spills over into the timeline into tomorrows worries or past regrets. Their remaining energy is sufficient only for limping through the day, not for living it to the full.” Sarah Young, Jesus Calling.

Some mornings the devotional seems to speak directly to me. Some mornings it stops me in my tracks. Lately, my vision has become clouded by too much fear, too much worry. Too much beyond my control.

That vision problem has me forgetting the gift.

For there is a gift He leaves, one for each new day. It’s called Grace and it’s just for you and me. It’s hand delivered from God himself. He holds it out, hoping we will open it. He waits and watches in anticipation……..He can’t wait to see how we’ll like it, what we’ll do with it.

Each measure of unwrapped Grace is just right, uniquely designed for that day, because just like each day is different, each need is different. Some days I leave it sadly untouched and it saddens Him. Even though He always leaves it right where I can find it

Oh, I see my great, grand future all right. I sometimes gaze at Heaven so intently that all I can see are spots before my eyes. I have no problem seeing the big picture, it’s the years I have left I struggle with because there is only so much I can control. It’s what I can’t control that scares me to death.

I want the next few years all mapped out and boxed up like a neat package, but God never promised that. But He did promise me today. And He is showing me to look around, to gaze back at the world and know that there is Heaven here too. In those He gives me.

And while the ticker tape of yesterday was fresh in my mind. I wrote the gifts down. Because blogging and praying is one thing. Sometimes you need to write it down so you can pick it up and hold it in your hands, and remember.

With my eyes closed and tears of gratitude, I saw the gift of today. It was sitting on a wicker porch swing, which rested on a big wooden wraparound porch of white. It was a big, square pink box with a grand yellow bow. The cushion it rested on was green with flowers.

And as I approached, I saw Jesus peeking through the lace curtains, smiling.

“Go on,” He said. “Open it. I made sure it was just your size.”

It’s in the blood

I could feel it coming and I tried to catch it before it came but I wasn’t fast enough. To staunch the flow I hastily wiped my hand under my nose, and while I was trying to unravel the toilet paper that was stuck, another drop rolled out. It’s not uncommon for me to get bloody noses here in this dry desert air. As I gazed at the two indelible marks which were now on the back of each hand, I thought:

God made the physical makeup of blood such that it refuses to be totally wiped out. It always leaves a trace of itself behind.

When Cain killed Abel, God told him that it was the blood that cried from the ground that disclosed the truth even before Cain had a chance to confess. Blood is sacred to God. Due to advanced technology we can now trace crimes back years…..decades.

It’s in the blood.

As I scrubbed my hands clean in the sink I thought that if someone shined one of those special lights on my skin, or brushed on that chemical they use to trace blood, they would most likely still see it there clearly. I remember years ago when my first cat Max was hit by a car and killed close to my parents house, I always averted my eyes from the blood left behind. It took years of storms and seasons to wash it away.

Following the thread my mind seemed to go all on its own, I went to that other place, a place I don’t go very often. I thought of my husband’s blood when it was spilled there in Mexico, and all of a sudden, right there in the bathroom, I wished I could apologize to the poor people who had to clean it up, because I know his blood left something behind in their life.

Something they will never ever forget. Maybe they said a prayer. I wish I could tell them that he was already in Heaven by then.

Then I thought of that scene from “The Passion”……..and who could ever forget it? The one where Mary is trying to scrub Jesus blood off the ground where He was scourged and she ends up getting it all over herself.

And there is no way any of us will get around that Blood. Someday we will have to account for what we did with it.

The blood of our loved ones is sacred to us, but all blood is sacred to God. He knows when it’s been shed callously. No one in this life will be able to get away with murder. Oh, they might think they are getting away scott free, but it’s God holds the DNA, He hears the blood crying out. He knows their name.

I also believe that somewhere in the Bible it says something about the careless slaying of animals as well. So if you go out and kill for the joy of killing, without respect for the animal and what it provides, you will be asked to give an account for your callousness.

In the Native American tradition, most tribes had very specific rules with respect to hunting. They had a deep appreciation and respect for the animal for exchanging its life to sustain theirs. And nothing was ever wasted. A Navaho tradition was to leave a perfect arrowhead behind as a way to honor the animal.

There seems to be very little respect for life in this world, but God hasn’t changed.

For behold, the LORD is about to come out from His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed And will no longer cover her slain……….Isaiah 26:21

I love the story in 2 Samuel, where the prophet Nathan turns the tables on David to get him to see how God feels about David taking Uriah’s wife for himself and then sending Uriah himself out to the front lines to fight.

This is David’s response, before he knew Nathan was referring to him.

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” 2 Samuel 12:5,6

My earliest memories of church are hearing the sounds of our singing echoing off the walls in that little children’s church hall, singing songs about His blood.

And all these years later, I still hear it no matter where I go.

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow……

It’s in my blood.

Thank God.

Image from fanpop.com

God and the Brandenburg Concerto

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope…….It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:21-26

Ever feel like the ground has suddenly shifted beneath your feet?

Like a great seismic shift happened somewhere and everyone got the memo but you and you feel like you’re free-falling through your own life?

Trying to walk backwards on a moving sidewalk?

You feel attacked by the “never wills…..” All of a sudden you know that some things in this life “never will” happen again……the train left and took your youth with it.

One minute you had your feet firmly planted on those sands of time and while you weren’t looking the tide came and took it out from under your feet and swept most of it out to sea.

Don’t be alarmed. This is a normal part of being human. Of living in an ever-changing culture, a time-stamped world.

When I feel that out of control falling feeling……..the one thing that helps me the most is to be reminded that God will never, ever change. When God is your anchor, you don’t have to be devastated by things that change in this life. And when He says, “I got this.” You know He really really really does.

This morning the Brandenburg Concerto came on the classical station I listen to on the way to work. I remembered a time when my Mom and I were much younger and I used to listen to this in my old room when the leaves rained yellow in the fall. She used to tell me it made her nervous, and she called it the “nervous music.” It was a sweet memory and I was smiling yet I wanted to cry too.

It comforted me to know that God and the Brandenburg concerto will never change, even if everything else does. And wouldn’t you know that God worked it out that the last note played as I coasted to a stop in the parking lot.

The best way we can honor today is by being fully present in the moment God gives us and by cherishing the people in our lives right now, we shape our memories tomorrow. We can tell time who’s boss because we don’t have to regret it when it’s gone.

The path to peace

“No one is righteous—
    not even one.
No one is truly wise;
    no one is seeking God.
All have turned away;
    all have become useless.
No one does good,
    not a single one.”
“Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
    Their tongues are filled with lies.”
“Snake venom drips from their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“They rush to commit murder.
Destruction and misery always follow them.
They don’t know where to find peace.”
“They have no fear of God at all.”

Romans 3:11-18

We watched the first installment of the new series, “The Blacklist” last night starring James Spader. Well, a few parts I watched through my fingers because I was afraid of what I’d see. “What happened to the bad guy?” I asked E. “I don’t know,” she said, “I was afraid to watch, I was sure the husband was going to get killed.” I guess we’ll never know. Needless to say, it was a scene we were not expecting and totally unprepared for.

I was almost ready for bed when I started watching it, but wide awake by the time the show was over.

All over the news, all over the world there is violence. You don’t have to look far. And cursing has become the norm, even for kids. They hear it from their parents. I compare the world now to the one I grew up in. A mistake I know. It’s something I thought I would never do and now I am. It’s hard not to, when you see such a marked difference, when you see how things have changed.

One thing I never had a moment of at any of my school campuses was real fear. All the way from Kindergarten through High School. Well, maybe I was a little afraid of BJ, she was one of the tough girls. And Steven Weigum. He was a punk. With Steven, you worked hard to be invisible. I was good at it, except for the one time I forgot to wear green on St. Patrick’s day.

From Grammar school all the way to Junior High, I heard maybe one parent say the “F’ word and I was shocked. Actually I didn’t even hear them say it, the daughter said she overheard her Mom say it…….once.

I feel sad for kids today. In many ways, they live in a callous and harsh world. Images of violence fills their culture through television, movies, video games and even music. Fear is part and parcel of their everyday world at school since all the school shootings started. Even us adults have to work hard to deprogram our minds from what we see and hear all day, on the news, at work. It would be easy to lose heart, to lose hope. To despair even.

It’s why I try to spend time alone with God the very first part of my day and saturate myself with His words. Sometimes I spend an hour, sometimes it’s 20 minutes, it’s just Him and me getting back to ground zero. Giving my mind and heart over to Him gets me back on track, brings me back home. It takes all that negative the world gives out and replaces it with what’s good.

It is an awesome thing to think we can have an open session with the God of the Universe anytime we want it. In fact, He seeks it…….delights in it. May it never get old for me.

It’s easy to think I’m a pretty good person when I watch a show like we watched last night where really bad guys are plotting to wreak havoc on the world, until I realize that in the verses above, the Apostle Paul is talking about all of us without Jesus.

And when I call that person “a name” for cutting me off on the freeway? I realize there is less distance between me and those character references in the book of Romans than I thought.

He reminds me of how my pitiful little rags of righteousness looked before they were dipped in His fountain.

It’s humbling, yes it is. But it’s good.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8,9

No theology in this post, just joy

Allow me to paraphrase a little from Song of Solomon……….For, lo, the summer is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away……..

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me is love………

Today for the first time in a very long time…..about 5 months to be exact, it was blissfully cool. Yesterday was a wondrous day, the garden was restructured and two new tomato bushes are planted, and a few herbs are settled in their corner along with the smiling gnome holding the skateboard.

We feel born again, again.

It happens this way every year, and every year, after the relentless scorch of the long summer we all come out to play. Everyone feels like a kid again. Windows are thrown open and screen doors welcome the fresh cool breeze that rejuvenates our sealed tombs that too long have held in the regurgitated refrigerated air that we are oh-so-thankful for, otherwise we would never survive.

Now, Lowes, and Home Depot liven up……..this is our unique brand of fall, petunias right along with the Christmas displays. Ah, this is the Arizona desert, the way we do autumn.

My Autumn colors show up on the inside, around my windows in swags of orange, yellow and red.

And on the door.

Soon we will welcome all our winter visitors back from beautiful places like Canada, Michigan, and the Dakotas.

Outside, I will set around some Mums and in the front, I will plant pansies.

This rapture causes the windows of joy to be throw open in our hearts because we know that we can once again we can visit God outside in the wide open spaces, on the trails, on our patios…….we expand our boundaries once again.

We barbeque and eat outside and once the desert chill hits, we sit around the fire outside under the stars.

Today, I opened every window in the house and made muffins. The cats, catching my enthusiasm, ran through the house, not knowing how to act with open windows, they keep going from one to the other. Not being able to make up their minds, I feel the same way. I want to do everything at once.

The gaggle of quail has been coming though all morning, along with the doves and cactus wrens and brown thrashers…….and of course, the pigeons too.

And today, I am counting it all joy.

Scripture passages from Song of Solomon Chapter 2, the italicized words are mine.

A one on one with Jesus

At my workplace we have regular meetings with our OM (Operational Managers) called 1 on 1’s. Sometimes these are regarding serious issues, like disciplinary action, raises or reviews. Other times they are just informal chats. When a new manager comes into the area they are scheduled with each team member as a way of introduction. Sometimes we just shoot the breeze and talk about our last vacation, or what’s happening in the news.

I am one of God’s kids that spends a lot of time thinking about eternity and what it’ll be like.The Bible actually says to keep our minds focused on things above, so I guess I take that literally. I wasn’t one of those kids that daydreamed a lot, but I spent a fair amount of time with my nose in a book, immersed in some imaginary world that I had no problem stepping into.

I like to think that when we get to Heaven, Jesus will schedule a 1 on 1 with each of us. He spent a lot of His time in crowds here on earth, but I love that He also scheduled individual time with people. I have no problem believing that when He talked with you, He made you feel as if you were the only person on earth.

He did that with the Samaritan woman at the well. And Nicodemus and Mary and Martha, and Peter, who he had to admonish for being concerned with what would happen to the other disciples after Jesus was gone….I love Jesus answer to Peter on that one. I just know he had a loving look behind his reproof.

I like to imagine what we will talk about.

I can imagine Him saying, “I have waited a long time for this,” and He will call me by name and make me feel like I am the only person that matters right then. I can imagine how He will look into my eyes and see straight into my heart. He will tell me not to worry about all the things I didn’t do, instead He’ll put His arm around me and tell me to focus on the joy. And everything there is to come.

And I can’t wait to see His smile when He shows me around because He knows how I flip over things like flowers, and trees and animals. I imagine all the fear and longing and heartache melted away. And just……Jesus.

Just the rest of eternity to be with Him.

What do you imagine you will talk about?

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions;if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” John 14:1-4

Photo from Creative Commons, Melanie Lukesh, some rights reserved.

Our hope is in the Lord

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11

I barely watch the news anymore. And the opening MSN page that I hastily retreat from on my way to Facebook? I barely give it a glance. I don’t care about the Kardashian’s latest escapade, or what happened to Lindsey Lohan’s Mom. I scan the headlines to see if there is something I really need to know. I put my foot in the pond of world events and stay there long enough to know what is going on and then I get out. Looking around at our world today, it would be easy to cave in, to despair. To forget that there is still so much good.

I got to prayer late this morning. I allowed myself the luxury of going back to bed. Not to sleep, to read. I grabbed my cup of coffee and propped myself up on my pillows with two cats settled on either side and read all the way through to the end of “Odd Hours,” the fourth installment of the Odd Thomas book series by Dean Koontz. I felt the pressures of the week closing in and I wanted to close them out. I wanted to beat back time. I needed fiction. I needed to know that the terrible events happening in the book were just that, fiction. And that just maybe I would get a happy ending out of it.

I wasn’t disappointed. The bad guys died. Every single one. I needed that. I wanted to close the book and feel some relief that things are not nearly as bad in the world as the events in the book I just read.

Because all too often in real life the bad guys don’t die, or get caught, they thrive. They prey, they get away with murder. They steal from innocent people who are just trying to get through the day and keep what they worked so hard for. They show up at a Navy Yard and kill an innocent custodian among many others, who never failed to show up for work. He was only doing his job. Like they all were.

Soon, we will have Obama care going into effect. It is something rich people and the politicians who pushed it through will not have to worry about. They will all have their own plans. They will not be bowed down with extra taxes if they fail to commit to a government plan. It’s the working people who will. We will be punished if we don’t buy into it. None of us asked for it, but we are getting it just the same. I don’t usually comment on politics on my site, because my hope doesn’t lay in any politician or world leader. Thank God.

And today, it hit me like a thunderbolt as I was coming home. It’s like I really got it. I knew why the early persecuted church found so much comfort in each other.

Where there is more turmoil in the world, there should be more love, more strength, more unity in the church.

We need to be reminded that our hope is in Christ and there is nothing we need to dread as long as we keep our focus on Him. That’s pretty much what my devotional said today and I needed to hear it.

Here is the last paragraph:

You inhabit a fallen, disjointed world, where things are constantly unraveling around the edges. Only a vibrant relationship with Me can keep you from coming unraveled too. Jesus Calling, Sarah Young

May this give you hope today, it does me. There is so much good still in the world. As long as we keep our eyes on Him, He will bring those things into our path and we will once again be recharged, renewed, imbibed with hope.

“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. Revelation 22:12

Lori's Prayer Closet

"And when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done is secret, will reward you……"Matthew 6:6