Have We Reached Our Expiration Date? By Linda Kozar

"A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished." Proverbs 27:12 

Is This The End, My Friend?

You may have noticed a plethora of apocalyptic TV shows airing, all in anticipation of the Mayan prediction of the end of the world at midnight, December 21st, 2012.

With that date in mind, a ground swell of doomsdayers are prepping and preparing to protect hearth and home, not only with food and medical supplies, but with guns and ammunition. The reason--anything from national emergencies, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, to end of the world scenarios. But when does prepping transform into hoarding and avarice? And how much is too much?

There's no argument that people should prepare for these scenarios (with the exception of alien and zombie attacks--C'mon now).

I've lived through enough hurricanes to realize the wisdom in keeping an emergency cabinet. There's even advice about preparing in Proverbs 6:6:

"Go to the aunt, you sluggard!

Consider her ways and be wise.

Which, having no captain, overseer or ruler,

She provides her supplies in the summer.

And gathers her food in the harvest."

Of course, back in ancient times people had to lay up food in the summer to get them through the winter. Food was stored up in times of plenty to prevent starvation in times of drought and famine or times when war made agriculture impossible. That same logic, when applied to modern case scenarios begs the question, "Why not lay up food for the possibility of hard economic times to come, or to temporarily provide nourishment and creature comforts through natural or man-made disasters?" Many people are stocking their homes with that very purpose in mind.

But others are stocking away food and supplies for an extinction event.

Extinction Event

Just what is an extinction event?

An Extinction-Level Event or ELE, is a period in time when a large number of species die out above and beyond the normal background level, events not caused by changes in habitat or competition. ELEs are caused by catastrophic events (meteors, super volcanoes, etc.)

There have been five mass extinction events throughout the earth’s history: Ordovician/Silurian (450-440 Ma), Late Devonian (375-360 Ma), Permian/Triassic (251), Triassic/Jurrasic (205) and Cretaceous/Paleogene (65.5).

Preppers call such an event: TEOTWAWKI, an acronym for "The End Of The World As We Know It."

And some people are forecasting a sixth extinction event. Here are some of the ways scientists and end-time theorists are predicting the world might come to an end:

• Asteroid Impact
• Comet Collision
• Orbital Obliteration (Orbits out of whack)
• Pandemic (Bird Flu, etc.)
• Terrorism
• Antimatter (from Particle Accelerators)
• The Machines Take Over (Computers/Robots become sentient)
• Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) (The Sun goes all supernova on us)
• Gamma Ray Bursts
• Global Warming or Cooling
• Loss of Biodiversity
• Ocean Acidification
• Solar Storm
• Alien Invasion (Little Green Men with BIG eyes)
• Supervolcano (Caldera)
• Geomagnetic Reversal (Polar Shift)
• Nuclear War
• Artificial Black Hole
• Zombie Attack (Really?)
• The X Factor (Unknown Cause)
• Judgment Day

Wow! Some of these predictions require a lot of imagination to entertain the thought (I'm picking on the zombie thing again). If I've left any out, please don't judge. I know there are more apocalyptic options, but I had to stop somewhere.

And while we're on zombies, for those of you who actually believe in such a thing, I might as well mention that aside from the resurrection at the end of the age, the dead will not rise, nor will they be hungry for human flesh. Corpses cannot utilize any of the five senses. They can't see or hear possible prey. They can't taste or digest. The neurons aren't firing in their brains. Their muscles and joints would no longer function, so shambling around, or any movement at all would be out of the question. Did I mention rigor mortis? Bloating? Aside from all that, insects and bacteria would make short work of the "living" dead. So there...

Stockpiling:

Many people have prepped way beyond their emergency cabinets and pantries. Their bedrooms, secret rooms and garages are full of food, gas masks, HazMat suits, weapons, seeds, tools and much more.

Hoarders typically fill their home and property with "stuff," eventually cramping their living space to the point where they are not able to move about freely. They believe they will use the items to scavenge and store someday.

If you're house is not so much a home as a storage facility, you might have a problem. You might have made the leap from prepper to hoarder.

Those who watch the NatGeo show, Doomsday Preppers on TV really get an eye and earful of what some people are doing to prepare. They are building huge compounds to house their families and friends, underground bunkers (some in abandoned missile silos or in caves deep underground), storing massive caches of food in a variety of locations, stockpiling medical supplies, weaponry and ordnance. And many of these structures are booby-trapped. One man even booby-trapped extra food supplies by lacing them with poison. Can you imagine a group of starving, desperate people--men, women and little children devouring those supplies only to perish?

Christians and TEOTWAWKI:

For Christians, the last ELE is of most importance. It is also the only event which has any meaning and it is definitely not a true extinction event (except for sin)! Funny, if you check out all the apocalyptic websites and forums, the return of Jesus Christ to judge the quick and the dead isn't at the top of the list.

Preparing for disasters is the smart thing to do. It's also the right thing to do, but obsession with prepping borders mental illness and certainly ventures into the area of sin. Now hear me out...

Prepping and Avarice

You might have read about the "Seven Deadly Sins" listed at various places in the Bible: Wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony.

Greed is also known as avarice or covetousness and like lust and gluttony, is a sin of excess. It expresses an excessive desire and pursuit of wealth, status and power. Thomas Aquinas wrote that greed was "a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." Greed is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth.

Yet God proves over and over in the Bible that He is well able to provide for His people.

In 1 Kings 17: 1-4, Elijah prophesied the Word of God to all the people that a drought would be over the land. God commanded him to hide by the Brook Cherith, drink there and receive food from the ravens, whom God commanded to bring him food. And that is exactly what happened.

Later, in 1 Kings 19: 5-8, Elijah was despondent.  After a showdown with the false prophets of Queen Jezebel, she wanted Elijah dead, so he had to flee into the wilderness. Depressed and without resources, he prayed that he might die and fell asleep under a broom tree. He awoke to the touch of an angel who said, "Arise and eat." Then he looked , and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water." He ate twice and was sustained by that heavenly food for forty days and nights.

And remember the widow and her young son in 1 Kings 17:16? "The bin of flour was not used up, not did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah." God can keep provisions flowing, bring you to food or bring the food to YOU

God is well able to provide for His people. "A good man gives an inheritance to his grandchildren and the wealth of sinners is kept for the righteous" (Aramaic Bible in plain english). Though we are prudent to prepare for emergencies and disasters, there is no guarantee the things we have stored up will survive such scenarios or be accessible to us.

But should we worry and wring our hands together over the future? Proverbs 15:15 “All the days of the desponding and afflicted are made evil (by anxious thoughts and forebodings), but he who has a glad heart has a continual feast (regardless of circumstances).

The Book of Revelation is the last book of the bible. God's unerring and eternal Word that reveals to us how the end of the world as we know it, will conclude. There will be a time of great tribulation, such as the world has never known. At some point during the tribulation, believers will be raptured, taken up (harpazos) to heaven with Christ. 

This is the sticking point with many Christians who ask "Will we have to go through part or all of the tribulation?" If so, many wonder how and where they would live without taking the mark of the beast (who will require every person to take his mark--name or number--on their body in order to buy, sell or trade. Imagine this situation for a moment. If you were suddenly unable to buy, sell or trade, how could you buy groceries? Pay your mortgage? Buy gas? The answer is, you would not be able to. You and your family would be forced to bug out--to retreat into the wilderness to survive. And you would eventually be pursued, hunted down by the world government, totally under the control of the antichrist.

But as I pointed out earlier in this discourse, God is well able to take care of His people, prepared or not. Elijah was not a prepper. He was a pray-er!

We know from the Book of Revelation that almost all of the scenarios listed above will come to pass in the destruction of the heavens and the earth. We know that an asteroid or meteorite named "Wormwood" (Revelation 8:11) will be on a collision course with earth. It will poison the water supply. Most of the sea life and animal life will perish. Plants will die off. There will be wars, bombs, fires, floods, solar flares, volcanoes, earthquakes, starvation, plagues and suffering. Those who are left on the earth till the bitter end, will ask the mountains to fall on them so they can put an end to their suffering. "And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb" Revelation 6:16.

Jesus, the Lion of Judah will return and put a swift end to Armageddon. The antichrist and false prophet will be destroyed. Satan and all his fallen angels will be vanquished forevermore. The righteous will be taken away to heaven. Unbelievers will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment and cast into Hell. Revelation 21:1 states: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . ." The Holy City of Jerusalem will descend out of heaven with God to the new earth. 

To a believer, the end of the world is a good thing. The end of the temporal world will usher in the eternal reign of Christ who will sit at the right hand of the Father, ruling a new heaven and a new earth. In heaven there will be no more tears, no more strife--no more sin and the destruction that results from it.

The Seven Deadly Sins can be counteracted by the daily choices we make.  Instead of puffing up with  pride in yourself, be humble; instead of hoarding food for your own use, collect and share food with homeless shelters or your church's food pantry. Substitute love for envy, kindness for wrath and self-control instead of lust. Don't be a glutton--eat sensibly instead. And substitute a pure zeal for God and His call on your life instead of being lazy and slothful. 

People have wondered about the end of the world since the beginning of the world. Remember Noah?The poet, Robert Frost pondered the end of the world, sharing his thoughts on the matter in the poem below. Whatever you believe about doomsday, the world will surely end at some point. And you'd better be ready on some level, but the most important preparation to make is to ask Jesus into your heart if you haven't already done so. Salvation is the only prep you'll need for eternal life with God.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice. 

Robert Frost

Want to know Jesus?

John 3:36

The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God's wrath remains on him.

1 John 5:11-13

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The onw who has the Son has this eternal life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have this eternal life. 

Colossians 2:13

And even though you were dead in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he nevertheless made you alive with him, having forgiven all your transgressions.

John 5:24

I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears My message and believes the One who sent Me  has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed from death to life. 

Romans 8:1

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.

Give Your Characters The Keys to Drive--by Linda Kozar

Book 2 in my series

I had the most fun writing THIS cozy mystery book. Why? I allowed the characters to dictate the storyline. And A Tisket, A Casket is definitely a character-driven book.

Character-Driven books are those in which the characters are more memorable than the plot. Some people claim the best stories are those in which a character/plot hybrid is attained, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd rather identify and emotionally connect with characters. It's unlikely one would be able to make that kind of connection with a plot.

A Tisket, A Casket is a cozy comedy book with plus-sized Lucy and Ethel type characters and scenarios throughout.

The premise? Lovita and her newly-engaged friend, Sue Jan attend a funeral for Sue Jan's Cousin Pouncey. Sue Jan loses her engagement ring and later figures out it must have fallen into the coffin. She doubts a judge will allow her cousin to be exhumed for the sake of retrieving her ring, so she decides to get it back her own way--the way any Texas woman worth her salt would, with a quick trip to Wal-Mart for shovels!

If you like:

• mystery
• love
• car chases
• a hot-tempered chef with missing fingers
• a spooky cemetery 
• zombies
• eccentric artists
• trompe l'oeil
• Chinese, French and TexMex food
• romantic weddings AND
• happy endings

you'll like
A Tisket, A Casket

CONTEST:
*There's a play on names throughout the book. 
If you read A Tisket, A Casket, please comment and tell me if you caught them all and I will enter your name into the hat to win a free digital copy of the book.

(This name play only occurs in Book Two, not in the other two books in the series). 

When Lovita Mae Horton wins a trip for two to attend a cooking school in Paris, she invites her best friend Sue Jan Pritchard along. Their joy is short-lived however, when they find out the trip is to Paris, Texas. Sue Jan has family there—Aunt Lila and Cousin Pouncey, but discovers her eccentric Cousin Pouncey has just passed away.

When Sue’s Jan’s unique antique platinum engagement ring goes missing, they suspect she lost it when saying her last goodbyes. With her wedding only a few months away, Lovita, Sue Jan and Aunt Lila decide to unearth the ring on their own, but instead dig up the dirt on an international ring of art thieves intent on brushing them off for good.

To order A Tisket, A Casket or the whole series on Amazon, click the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Tisket-Casket-Ladies-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0086ZH5KE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352478734&sr=8-1&keywords=a+tisket+a+casket

Linda Kozar is the co-author of Babes With A Beatitude—Devotions For Smart, Savvy Women of Faith (Hardcover/Ebook, Howard/Simon & Schuster 2009) and author of Misfortune Cookies (Print, Barbour Publishing 2008), Misfortune Cookies, A Tisket, A Casket, and Dead As A Doornail, (“When The Fat Ladies Sing Series,” eBooks, Spyglass Lane Mysteries, 2012). Her latest novel Strands of Fate released October 2012 (Hardcover/Ebook, Creative Woman Mysteries). She received the ACFW Mentor of the Year Award in 2007, founded and served as president of Writers On The Storm, The Woodlands, Texas ACFW chapter for three years. In 2003, she co-founded, co-directed and later served as Southwest Texas Director of Words For The Journey Christian Writers Guild. She and her husband Michael, married 24 years, have two lovely daughters, Katie and Lauren and a Rat Terrier princess named Patches.

Represented by: Wendy Lawton, Books & Such Literary Agency

Member of: CAN (Christian Authors Network), RWA (Romance Writers of American), WHRWA (West Houston Romance Writers of America), ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), Writers On The Storm, The Woodlands, Texas Chapter of ACFW, Toastmasters (Area 56) The Woodlands, Texas. WoodsEdge Community Church, The Woodlands, TX.

Growing Up Haunted--A True Story (Part 5) By Linda Kozar

Growing Up Haunted

(Part 5 of  5)

New Orleans

With Hurricane Betsy (1965) bearing down on New Orleans, our family left to stay at my grandparent's home where we rode out the storm without much consequence. There were downed power lines, branches everywhere, roof damage, but thankfully, not much flooding. When we returned to our home however, we had not fared so well. There was major damage. Much of the roof had blown off and there was extensive water damage to the walls, floors, furniture--everything. We were without power for weeks on end, conserving food and water. We found splinters of wood embeded in fence posts--such was the strength of the wind.

Instead of simply repairing what needed to be fixed, my parents decided to add on to the house and do some remodeling--in this case--a major remodel. They decided to add on an entire second floor.

So for the next 5 or 6 years, things were fairly quiet around our house, except for all the sawing and hammering going on. Progress was slow as my father kept getting new ideas and inspirations. Besides that, he was both a perfectionist and procrastinator--not a good combination for an efficient remodel:)

Finally though, the rooms were ready. Our bedrooms were now upstairs--my parents had one room, my sister and I shared and my brother had his own room situated at the end of a long dark hall.

Shortly after we moved to our new quarters, my brother began to behave strangely. In the middle of the night, every night, he bolted down the hall and jumped into bed with my parents. He was terrified of something, though he couldn't tell us exactly why or what he was afraid of.

Over the years, his night terrors grew worse. I'm sad to say my sister and I used to make fun of him for being a "baby" and not being able to sleep in his own room like a big boy. Why didn't it occur to us, especially me, give my experience, that he might have been afflicted by the same spirit we had encountered years before?

As I said earlier, my mother was fully convinced that the whatever had plagued her before was gone. That said, she was still afraid to talk about it. I believe she feared talking about what happened might cause its return. The rest of the family (with the exception of my father) had no idea my mother had experienced anything similar to mine until we finally sat down and talked about it.

Finally, things began to happen in front of people other than my brother. Once he had a friend over. They were playing a board game on the floor in his room. His friend threw a ball into the closet. A couple of minutes later, the ball hurtled out of the closet at his friend. Mind you, the ball didn't simply roll out of the closet from an unstable position.

We started listening to my brother. He told us about the spirit. When he crawled into his bed to go to sleep, he would often feel something else lay next to him. He would see the mattress press down, as if under an invisible weight. And the spirit would talk to him--urge him to engage in evil acts toward his family, to others, to himself. Though terrified, he resisted.

Eventually, he moved out of that room and to a downstairs bedroom. We closed the door on his old room and used it for storage. The truth is, we avoided it. Sometimes we'd hear noises coming from the room. Other times when were pulling out the driveway, we could see what looked like a woman or a man at the window. No one wanted to be alone in the house because you knew you weren't alone. The way you feel when you know someone is watching you.

The years went by. In my twenties and no longer living at the house, I was visiting one weekend and went upstairs to look for a bolt of material in the room. It was pretty much sealed off and though we had central air, the vents were closed. In the middle of summer, I dreaded the prospect of searching for my sewing materials in the heat, but I mainly wanted to get in and out as soon as possible. I looked around and found the bolt, but as soon as I grabbed it, a chill wind passed through my body. A chill as cold as winter--as cold as the wind that first blew through the house that summer's day so long ago. I could feel it pass through me. I've never felt anything like that before or since. Shaking, terrified, I dropped the bolt and ran. That was my final encounter in the house. I never experienced any other manifestion of the demonic presence again, nor did I ever desire to.

Through a series of divine appointments with born-again believers, my brother decided to give his life to Jesus. He was the first in our family to do so and began to pray and witness (share his testimony) with the rest of us. In time, we all accepted Christ as well. Though we didn't know or understand the full significance and authority given to believers at the time, that decision was the first step to our deliverance from the demonic presence in the house.

We used to watch as my brother walked through the house with his Bible, speaking over each room with authority. An eager prayer warrior, he rescinded the invitation to the demon(s) and closed the open door originally offered by the Ouija board. He searched through the house and collected occult material--incluing the original Ouija Board which was stored on the top shelf of my closet for some odd reason. He also collected items none of us had ever considered to be occult material--books, tapes, even movies and removed them from the premises. We began to join him in those prayer sweeps, concentrating God's Word in faith on casting out that awful spirit for good. And though a few more rather unsettling occurances happened over the years, this time again involving my mother, the reign of terror welded by that demonic spirit over the house and over our lives was over, broken!

My father went to be with the Lord in 2004. A year later, in 2005, Katrina flooded the home with six feet of of water. Since no one was allowed back into the area right away, the house overcome with black mold, the interior downstairs gutted and destroyed. The home was eventually reduced to a bare skeleton inside. (See photos below). The city finally bulldozed the house in 2010. Now there is nothing left but an empty lot.

The hurricane also destroyed my brother's home but the storm left in its wake, a desire to serve God in a new way. My brother became a pastor.

There are those who still play with Ouija boards or dabble in the occult in various other ways, people who think there is nothing wrong with doing so. But experience is something you get when you were expecting something else.

We expected to play a board game.

Instead, our family was tormented for many years by a demon or demons.

The experience changed our lives. We were tormented and afflicted, but now we are free. For years we remained silent about it. But now it is part of our testimony. And because it is very much a part of my personal testimony, I finally felt ready to share this true story about overcoming victory in Christ Jesus. The blood of Jesus set us free from the law of sin and death. Jesus saves, heals, protects and delivers!

It is my sincere hope that this testimony will help others who might find themselves in similar situations or those who have lived through it as we did, but chose to keep silent.

Deuteronomy 18:10 "Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead." 

Hebrews 9:27 "It is appointed unto men but once to die and then the judgment." Reveal the lies and lead them to Your Truth Lord."

The home AFTER Katrina

 1 Peter 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour."

Matt. 16:19 "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

"Ghostly Orbs" There are some plausible explanations for orbs--moisture, camera lens issues, etc. but this was the room with the greatest activity.

Downstairs completely gutted after the Hurricane.

Luke 10:19 "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."

Acts 10:38 "How God annointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil..."

Matt 8:16 "...He cast out the spirits with His Word. . ."