Monthly Archives: February 2013

“He that have clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully…He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”  (Jesus)   Psalms 24:4-5

IF I CAN DO IT SO CAN YOU, with the help of God; some of us think we can do anything because “we got it like that,” or so we think, plus it sound easy enough. But without Christ, it does not matter who we perceive ourselves to be, or what we think we can do. Having it made is a blessing, but with a “bad to the bone” attitude and vanity, we can lose our edge.

My name is Norvie L. Cherry.  Please, call me Cherry.

I am a Storyteller/Motivational Speaker, one of my subjects is; Medical Terms and Short Stories. I am an Author; I Survived 60 Years to get Cancer, Then Kill it, now being edited, and of course a Blogger, writing under the category, “Something To Think About.”

My web address is norvielcherry.com, please sign up at this website if you would like to be notified of future postings. As we all know, with blogs, numbers count. Thanks for your support.

With that being said; my purpose is that of a Living Witness for Christ. Some may not know, but, to be a witness you must have experienced an event, and if by chance you gain a purpose from it, you have received a blessing.

The death veil was lifted from my head in order for me to testify, and declare Jesus Is Lord. My foundation and relationship with Christ are in His words, so the Bible is where I go to prepare, and from my heart, I offer, true life Testimonies, for all to enjoy, understand, and possibly learn from.

We all search for answers, I call on the name of Jesus for mine, but I had to learn how to pray; how to stay still and listen.         

“Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.”   Psalms 143:1

How many times have you asked yourself a question, and answered it almost immediately? Only to come back later and say, I should have followed my first mind; so it would seem that some of us are lucky enough to have two, and still the answer passed over our heads.  DUD!

Learn how to listen to what’s in your heart, where the spirit lives.  Not knowing, causes some answers to come and go with hardly a thought. Missed, because of a small attention span, or kicked to the curb because we didn’t like the results. Banking on something good to happen because we are just plain lucky.

Some big payday is right around the corner, and we waste time waiting for it, confident that our “ship is going to come in.”  What some of us fail to realize is; we have to earn what we want in life, but more importantly we must know; THE DEVIL GIVE GIFTS TOO.

Beware! No matter how hard we try to conjure up wealth, and health, etc.; without God and effort, it is a failure, and still some of us feel invincible as if nothing can touch us. When we are young and know everything, we have the tendency to think we will get everything our hearts desire. My imagination and wish list were running ramped.

Go ahead and laugh, but when I finally realized things were not going to go exactly as I had predicted; and my parents were right, it was time to grow up and get out of the “me generation.”  No matter how long or hard we pretend or dream, we must become realists, responsible, and at some point begin to earn our own living.

I am not trying to preach to anyone, I was preaching to. I only want for us to become aware of the fact, that if we don’t change some of our ways and wants, there could be more than a few long hard roads to travel. For me, Cancer was one of those roads. I was under the impression, it couldn’t happen to me, but it did.

Cancer caused me to come to terms with, there was nothing special about me, and the things I desired were not going to fall from the sky. I realized I was not immune to the tragedies of the world. I fully understand we all have our moments and purpose. It’s just, some of us have also been given a task, mine is to testify, relating the Goodness of God to all who will listen.

I was trained, and sustained by the words of a home providing father, a loving mother, friends, and a kindly godmother. Reassuring their Faith of God in me. The bottom line was, like it or not, my siblings and I were going to church. I might not have embraced it then, but now I am blessed because of the training. There is value in constructive education; and as the years passed, those lessons had a lot to do with the faith it would take to help save my life…

God choose to save me, and there was nothing easy about it, a price to pay, so while I am telling you “the rest of the story.”  I just ask that you keep in mind, I am not trying to convince you of anything, “it is what it is.”

There is no such thing as a “get out of jail for free card,” in the real game of life. I was struggling with 3rd stage Breast Cancer, receiving Chemo, while being a caregiver for my dying mother. Yes, I had a support system, my siblings, and friends, etc.

In 2008 the economy took a hard hit, although in and out of work, and battling Breast Cancer; I still had to pay the bills, and eat. The world doesn’t stop spinning because we have woes. With all of that was going on, and life in general, I stepped out on faith; with a desire to live and a determination to give you what God gave me. Motivation, faith, testimonies, written documentation declaring; Jesus Is Lord, and He does Miracles.

Because of not knowing how to listen, and not obeying my spirit, I lose a part of me to Cancer. I had been warned and I still didn’t listen…Losing a body part is a harsh reality, but I survived, and now I know I can handle life’s threatening events, with success. But it won’t happen if you don’t have a relationship with Christ.

If God is for us, who can be against us? The Devil, if you don’t know the Lord. When we are sick and fighting for our lives, it would be best for God to know you, then you know the Devil.

We can become effective witnesses for Christ, But we must have a clear mind, and able to give an accurate account of any event we witness. We must remember what has occurred, in detail, and learn from it. The experience has to be processed, in order to be retained and taught; at the same time giving all the Glory to God. We must remain humble while sharing what we have learned with others.

“If I can do it, so can you.”  

There are some invaluable reasons family history is passed down from generation to generation. Stories told when we were children, tales of everyday life. Oftentimes, these stories were revisited to help us prepare for life, teaching us how to handle the good, the bad, and crisis, etc. The life lessons needed for us to grow into adulthood with wisdom, and compassion, the tools that cause us to care for, and share with others.

Like some of us, I too was aware of Christ as a child. But it was only after trial and error, I opened my mind and let God. I got to know Him and that’s when all possibilities surfaced, and my life turned around in a positive manner.

I realized what could be achieved by seeking the Kingdom of God, and found this is the way to open new doors, and venues; to expand our hearts and minds. To experience peace. Remember when we Trust the Lord and are looking for a better life, losing a job can be a stepping stone, to place us in position, for what God has in store for us, which is always more than we can do for ourselves. Psalms 34:8 say;

“Oh! Taste and see the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts him.”

We can start by incorporating prayer and reading education material. Aha! Books. May I suggest the Bible? Not only is it educational and compelling, it is actually a good read. Stories of adventure, love, faith, deceit, war, and courage. Search and find the new you thru Christ. Come clean and let others feel your real spirit on the battlefield of God. The first step is to confess;

Jesus is your Lord and Savior.  If you allow, He’ll take it from there.

“I can do all things through Christ which strengthen me.”  Philippians 4:13

SO CAN YOU.

norvielcherry.com, norviep2@att.net or Facebook norvie.cherry@facebook.com

Sometimes we are “too smart for our own britches.”

Usually, this is said about us when we consider ourselves to be smarter, and better than the rest. When we take on this type of attitude we can mess up our life’s, because of vanity; too proud of oneself. This fault alone can cause us to become as “dumb as a rock.”

When we are only listening to ourselves there is a tendency to become a tad out of touch; causing us to make the statement, “That’s just who I am,”  often using it when we are caught, also this overstated phrase is a lie,  used to cover up, most blunders.

When I thought I knew everything I would make statements like; “If I say it out my mouth, it must be true,”  it just stood to reason, in my mind. But, when I discovered I did not know the half of it, or have a clear prospective. I claimed it was no fault of my own. Just another day in Bedrock, bad judgement, poor information, and plenty of excuses.

I believe there are some exceptions; naturally I would, that’s our makeup. But for the most part, we blame our situations in the world, and everything in it. Leaving it at that; instead of taking it to Christ.

Sometimes we mistake some wrongs for truth. Although, we thought it to be correct, it was not;  and still we are responsible for ourselves, and the decisions we make; whether the information is true or false.

Careful; you must be able to live with the choices you make, and the reasons you made them. This is your cross to bear.

What gets me about how smart we think we are, is that grand idea we claim is ours, or this new wealth of knowledge we have received on the fly, really came from someone-else thoughts. And we took it as our own, because it sounds good.

Do what you do, but I suggest you not steal another persons anything. Plus, by no means is stealing the right thing to do. Get your act together, be vigilant and grounded in Christ.

We take a fact and or fiction for granted, because we claim to be doers; and that make us simply too busy, sometimes too busy to think. So some of us have gotten to the point that we can be easily impressed, by the mere tone of someone’s voice, (a personally, spokesperson, etc.) and believe everything that is said. In case you don’t understand, all I am saying is, don’t be easily led by what you have heard or, “As seen on TV.” 

The Devil is a liar, and it’s just another trick to distract us from the real business at hand. Our purpose.

When it comes to someone or things we are not on the same page with, we often would rather be wrong, before changing our stance. Standing our ground; preparing to miss out, before we give in. We often take on the attitude, that if it comes from someone on the bottom of our totem poles, they are without merit, so we refuse to seek or take suggestions into consideration, “from those low life’s,” no matter how much sense it makes.

Some of the greatest opportunities available are lost, because of that type of attitude and 1st impressions.

I am guilty of looking at a person and instantaneously not liking them. I quit doing that when I realized most of the time we ended up being good friends. I was a “smarty pants.”  Now I know, the only one that knows everything, is Christ, and He doesn’t bother, because He knew us, while we were still our mother’s belly. You can read about that in Jeremiah 1:5

I was watching some courtroom drama, where a young lady was involved in the proceedings, and the judge asked if she had a source of income. She replied that she did, so he wanted to know her place of employment.  She said she was unemployed, so now he wanted to know where did her source of income come from. To which she replied child support.

The judge-coped an attitude and told the young lady, the child support checks were not her source of income. She in return replied, “the check is in my name.”  The judge kept repeating child support was not her source of income, and she kept telling him the check was in her name. This was going nowhere.

Some would say, she was as “dumb as a rock,” because she did not understand that the child support checks are for her children, only. She made her case by stating, she was using the money to buy gas, pay bills, buy food, and she was doing the best thing she could for her family; by seeking work, while her mother kept the children…

On the other hand, the judge was “too smart for his own britches,”  because he chooses not to explain the law. Since he was so smart, it made him look dumb by not resolving the issue. The right thing to do was to educate her. The more we know the better off we are. But she was unworthy of his expertise. After all, he was sitting up high looking down, and he is the judge.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged.”  Matthew 7:1 

We know the judge had to do his job; but instead of sitting on the bench of justice, he was poised at the judgment table.

Personal opinions about others are unnecessary and most times harmful. When we set ourselves up on some kind of never heard of before the throne, some of the things we consider to be beneath us are really over our heads. And we call ourselves Christians.

We are so full of ourselves, we fail to help others because some have become Narcissists; in love with our own reflection. Sometimes greed, the way we think, and the appearances of others, will not allow them to come up to our standards. Making us feel superior, and others unworthy of being in our presence; causing us to unfairly judge, and horde the gifts given by God, for the betterment of all.

Some of us claim we are the underdogs. The ones that declare “all I need is a break,” coupled with an excuse for not seeking employment, etc. Then there are the people who will go to any extent to not be proven wrong, and there are some that are so selfish their motto is; “If I can’t have it, no one can. I will throw it away first,” and do just that.

With that attitude, some of us do not realize, we are throwing our life away, and some just don’t care.

We talked before about, “you reap what you sow.”  So if any of the above scenarios relate to you, you might as well dig a hole and climb in it. Especially if you are under the impression that this is a winning personally, in my opinion.

“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, to grave to laugh and too selfish to seek other than itself.”     Khalil Givran

It is necessary to help others, not only in prayer but in our daily lives. If we cannot help others, the least we can do is stop trying to harm them.!  False knowledge and bad information can cause grave consequences.

Heads up!

You can’t fix a problem if you’re not aware of one. Being misinformed can cause us to be “too smart for our own britches,”  and at times being uninformed can cause us to be as “dumb as a rock.”    

Think of obtaining  the Blessings promised in Ephesians 6:8

” Know that whatsoever good thing any man do, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.”  

norvielcherry.com, norviep2@att.net or Facebook norvie.cherry@facebook.com