Matt:10:34-39 "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--a man's enemies will be the members of his own household."

I am practicing to be an old woman. I am not old yet but I am full of days. There is a phenomena that I have witnessed and am experiencing in regards to aging.

We all begin our lives as a tightly enclosed narcissistic creature and the natural process of our development is the gradual unfolding of self. Even though our bodies begin to age and fail once we have reached maturity, this unfolding process continues--or it should. As people age they either become embittered by the hurts and disappointments in life or they apply those hurts as lessons of life and instead of closing back inward on themselves and returning to the narcissism of infant-hood, their thinking becomes ever more inclusive of ideas that present themselves as paradox as life has taught them that nothing is truly black and white and the grey areas are not truly grey, but rather that life is a colorful array of diversity that requires every diverse hue to be present in forming our reality.

Human beings seek uniformity and uniformity is comforting to us. We desire order from the time we are children and require the security of rules imposed upon us by our parents. When we become adolescents, we impart on a journey of finding acceptance and sorting out from the crowd those who are like us. For some, this journey lasts for a lifetime and it can never reach its destination for none of us have been made like another. God's Creation is diverse and it is its diversity that is its perfect order. In the Creation there is order that does not come from the mind of man, as he is of the Creation, and man can't fully understand it. Since Adam was cast from the garden, he has been striving to impose his uniform order on the order that God has created through diversity.

The Christian faith is an inclusive faith that is full of division. If our faith were to lose that division, it would also lose its inclusiveness. If all Christians were to all agree upon doctrine, theology, and personal revelation, we would become a club and no longer a living, breathing organism that is the church. Unity through uniformity is substandard unity.

Christians have unity in Christ. We were all purchased by the same blood and have been baptized by the same Spirit and this was accomplished in our lives by one person, Jesus Christ. It is possible to have such a complete unity in Christ that the what's of that which another believes never surfaces for years.

As I have aged and also become more mature in the Lord, an amazing thing is taking place. I am on the narrow path with Jesus and I must always be true to Him. As I study His Word, I must be true to what He shows me there no matter what another believer or unbeliever may think of me. By human substandards of unity through uniformity, this process should cause me to become more and more isolated from others. In Christ though, the very opposite takes place. The closer I draw to Him, the more inclusive I become towards others and my belief system is in the process of becoming much more inclusive, as well. It is by the utmost diversity in clinging to Jesus that my heart is being changed to no longer desire to tell others where they are in relation to God but rather to listen as they tell me. I can only point to Jesus in my life for it is His work with another on that same narrow path with Jesus alone that creates Chrst-likeness in another. I have no longer any desire to make anyone be like me. I desire God's order of diversity and no longer crave the uniformity that is natural to myself. I am no longer a child in need of the protection of rules. I have Jesus and He is sufficient for all my needs of belonging.

I am a woman full of days and I am walking very close to my Lord Jesus. I am in this age, upon the narrow path of ultimate diversity. Jesus and the Salvation He has given me is my personal hope. That hope has grown in me through being diversified from all others in Christ to a point of greater unfolding of self that is no longer self, but a full unfolding of Christ within me. Through that unfolding, I am able to extend the hope that is in me toward all men and women. That hope extends far into the future to a time that I can't know for sure from the present and I can't know the full end of that hope. The hope that I have in me is that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, all would be returned to God. God has loved me greatly through Jesus, my friend that sticks closer than brother. By His love He has saved me from perishing and from personal and complete destruction. It is that love and the hope that has been born from out of that love that I extend to all in all the diversity that is contained in that small word. It is a hope that not all who are my brothers and sisters in Christ see; and it is a hope that I do not know for certain how it can be fulfilled; but I remember me when I was without hope. If God can take a woman such as me who before Jesus was devoid of hope and make of me a woman who is so full of hope that it is large enough to cover all, God can do anything.

As a woman who has become full of days, I will no longer limit God to my intellect. I will not abandon His Word and neither will I present my hope that exists only as a hope born out of the changed desire in my heart through Jesus, as factual proof, but I will no longer limit Him to that which I, a mere woman, am able to comprehend. All things are possible with Christ.

Hebrews 11:1-3 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commanded for by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

As a woman full of days, I have learned to be careful what I hope for. God's desire is that none should perish and that is the hope in my heart too. He is long suffering beyond my imagination and my hope is also in that long suffering. By faith, I extend that hope into the future to a future work of God that is greater than my personal Salvation; a hope that is greater than the ability of my intellect to see. It is a hope based upon the Character of Jesus, Who pleases His Father in all things. It is a faith in the Alpha and Omega, that what appears to be ending will be in fact returned to the beginning, in the fullness of time as time fades and all that is seen perishes and re-immerges eternal.

As a youth, I raised hell. As a young Christian, I delighted in telling others that they were raising hell for themselves. In my maturity, I desire to bring heaven down; for God's glory has filled my soul.