HOTTER THAN THE EYES OF hell....

When The Day Of Evil Comes

by Melanie Wells


Don't let the cover fool you, this is a book about spiritual warfare

that has scared the begeebies out of me.

I admit, I am one that judges a book by it's cover. I've passed up many books that others have recommended. If a cover isn't interesting, or if by my judgement, the author, or the publishing company hasn't spent what I thought was an ample amount of time on the cover, it goes back on the shelf at the library. As I'll explain later, I'm finding I'm more and more scared of going to libraries and searching the stacks of books at the farthest point from the checkout desk.

No one hears you back there.....

But back to this thriller of a story. This cover intrigued me. Who is this white chalky man on the cover? Why is he in a pool of water up to his chest with no reflection? Why are his eyes adverted to the left? What is the day of evil, and more importantly when is it coming?????

(PLEASE tell me so I can pray for protection!)

Taken from the back of the book it states:

First, there is the bizarre encounter with a ghastly pale stranger (obviously the one on the cover). Then her mother's engagement ring turns up--the same ring that was buried with her mother two years before....

I love thinking about spiritual warfare. The stately angels, fighting for the glory of God, and the slimy demons on the other end getting blasted left and right and still believing that they literaly have a change (in hell maybe) at winning. My husband says that I'm demented and that I think about it too much but I don't think there's anything wrong with this, except of the fact that I freak myself out half the time hearing noises from the neighbors beside us. My logic is, if you figured out what tricks and temptations that the dark side throws at you, then you'll know how to better fight off those tricks and temptations. Matthew tries to freak me out by saying, "well there could be a demon over your head right now". My response is, well he could be holding my hand right now, or picking my nose for all I care, but it doesn't phase me because I know he can't harm me.

One instance in particular that still scares me now when I think about it is, Dylan Foster, the main character in the book is doing research at the library. She "feels" someone staring at her. (I've had this feeling many times, to then look around and someone is staring at me. Very freaky!!) Something catches her eyes over by the library stacks and sees this chalky white figure staring at her between the horizontal rows of neverending books. She takes off running towards the stacks to find him but obviously he's NOT there. Now I find myself going into the library and hovering the stacks that are closest to the checkout desk. Really I don't think anyone would hear a muffled scream if someone did jump out and get me.

Another thing that has really made me think is this chalky figure. In the book she catches the backside of him, and he has a ghastly deep cut on his back. She describes this gash as something that would drastically harm someone or take their life. It seemed to not phase this figure at all. She was speaking with one of her friends and proposed the idea of how demons are really angels. The one distinct fact is they are fallen angels. What if one of their punishments for choosing the pit of hell instead of the glorious Kingdom of heaven is that during the fall, their wings are violently ripped from their backsides. It's really made me think....

So my questions to all of you are, do you believe in demons?
Do you think maybe they have lost their wings in the fall?
Do angels even have wings? (is their scripture backing your ideas?, is so let me know, I've been searching!)
Do you believe that angels and demons play a vibrant roll in our everyday lives?

Let me know what you think..I'm very interested!

keep crankin them out...

alright guys...here are some more handmade items that I have up for sale of etsy. To access my link you can either go to etsy.com and go to seller name and type in: juvalee13 , or you can click on the link below to see my new items!!



http://www.juvalee13.etsy.com/















































I have made a promise to donate 20% of the sale price (excluding shipping) to go to the Sudan Project at Ginghamsburg Church. To learn more about this awesome project click on the link below:
http://ginghamsburg.org/sudan/ or http://www.thesudanproject.org/

dwelling with friends

On January 19, 2008 we were honored to have our friends from Toledo, Ohio come down to the little town of Vandalia, to visit for the day. It seemed like it had been years since we last saw them, and it was hard to believe thinking back that only a couple of months had passed. We were very excited to see them, and to see Chelsea and Anne as they advance through the pregnancy months.

Since we have moved from Bowling Green, it seems that we've had a very hard time getting plugged into a new Home Group. We went through a four week orientation class at our new church and waited anxiously to get placed into a new group.....October passed....November passed....December and the blur of the holidays came and went.....January comes and after waiting anxiously almost to the point of the anxiousness fizzling out, we attended our first group since the big move. We were very nervous. This group had been meeting together since the summer of 2005 (which was when we started the Toledo group) and we weren't quite sure what it would be like to join and already solid group. It was held in a neighboring town and when we found out it was in an apt I was pretty pumped. Maybe these couples are exactly like us. Recently married, trying to make it through the hardships of becoming accustomed to married life, dealing with low paying jobs, trying to just survive through the 20s. .... to say the least we weren't dissappointed, but we weren't exactly satisfied either. The people in the group were very interesting and had a passion for the Lord, but they were all single. We walked in, as the only married couple, feeling a little out of place. We left that night wondering if they felt akward being in the presence of us as well.

I thought more that night and the days that have since passed about our previous group. I remember the first night we met at Jim and Jan A.'s place. I got in the car for the trip to BG, and saying to Matthew "God has perfectly placed us here. We need these people, we are supposed to be here. We are supposed to fellowship with these individuals, and they will be our life long friends" Sadly I didn't walk away from the last group feeling this way.

The last two years spent in BG were difficult. We walked through those years, confused about what God had for our lives. Matt was teaching at a private school on a low salary, and I was working in a window treatment company. I spent my days in a design room office, seriously doing what I wanted. We had about 5 customers come in at the most each day. In 8 hours. It was a LONG 8 hours. I was often poked fun at because I had a "cake job". But it was still a place that I really didn't want to be at everyday, 46 hours a week, 6 days a week (for the majority of weeks in the year), so I still considered it work. Sometimes I would come home literally exhausted from all the time that I had just sat there thinking. It was kind of a slow torture to the mind.

In the fall of 2006 we thought that maybe God was calling us into missions. Our home group friends were behind us all the way. I remember many Wednesday morning sitting at the comfy chairs with Chelsea in Beaners (nowBiggB! SOO DUMB! but love the Carmel Marvel..yum!), feeling the slow cold draft come in from the opening doors, talking about Cairo, Egypt. I was so excited. This was something I felt God was calling for my life. But sometime I think I was just excited because I wanted so badly to feel like I had a place and that God had a plan for me. I was excited because I thought I found it. Turned out that wasn't for us after all. In the end our home group friends were there after the dissappoining trip to Florida for training. They were the there the many months later, hearing our complaints, and frustrations. I've learned now that if you let your dissappointments anger you, you're trying to fill the place that only God can fill, with things that don't really matter. It ends up puncturing little holes in your spiritual cup.

It seems that our Home Group friends have experienced alot of our lives, more than I ever realized. This past week I've found myself staring at the picture that Chelsea took for us that weekend. It dawned on me that these people, these friends know us more than any of our friends. They know the struggles, the happy times in BG, the late night drum sessions in the basement, the obnoxiously loud game nights with the warm fire beating our backs. They KNOW us. I miss having friends close like we were to them. I miss them alot....they'll never be replaced, but I hope we find a group like that again.

darkness departure

I have so many thoughts...hopefully this makes sense...

I was shocked and stunned to read on msn.com last night about Heath Ledgers death. I had such a swarm of feelings rush over me, it actually stopped me in my tracks. I just said over and over to Matthew, I can't believe it...I can't believe it.

I remember hanging out with my good friend Kari when we were in high school and watching numerous times, "A Knight's Tale". We thought that he was so HOTT (with numberous T's afterwards, as we liked to put it). We loved watching that movie, and receiting ...'we will, we will...rock you...rock you". I think secretly we wanted a knight like that, who LOOKED like that to come sweep us off our feet. He was such a heart throb.

It brought me back to when news stations broadcasted Anna Nicole-Smith's departure into the darkness. I remember sitting in the Palmer apt in Bowling Green, stunned to the point of being frozen. I literally sat in the recliner for almost an hour just watching the news coverage. Hardly responding, just staring at the tube. Later that night I actually cried! But deep down, I don't think I was crying over the loss of her life, because I personally didn't know her. I was sad for her family and her daughter, but not over the loss of something personally to me. I think the finality of death was what made me sad. I thought of my husband, my family, my grandparents, my aging puppy CoCo. Death can hit at any moment, when you least expect it.

Last night I was sitting on the floor in the sewing room, working on a multi-colored baby sling. Stretching, pulling, pinning the fabric in the desired position, and the whole time thinking of Heath Ledgers family. His little girl, the mother, his parents, his siblings, everyone who loved him and loves him beyond the grave. What grief they must be feelings because of the suddeness of the news.

After some time passed, probably only momentary seconds, I realized that I was staring at my fingers on the carpet. I started to move them in different positions. I started to think of my own hands after I departed this world and went to be with my Savior Jesus, my shell of a body left to be cared for by my family, and finally laid in the ground....what would my hands look like in my grave? How do I want my hands to look? Will they be laying gently at my sides, across my chest, intertwined on my belly? After I realized what I was doing, I ran into the living room where Matthew was watching Jeopardy and told him that I want my children, or if we don't have children, I want him to have my wedding rings. I want those passed down. I want the legacy of loving my husband so much to be passed onto others. I want that undying love, the love for my soul mate to be shown to others, not hidden by the depths of the earth.

I'm beginning to think of death more lately because I've been reading the popular book by Mitch Albom "Tuesdays with Morrie". Morrie as Mitch describes is a very astute, wise man, who really did learn much about life until he was given the disease ASL, or otherwise known as Lou Gergig's disease. Morrie states that "you don't really know how to live unless you first learn how to die...."

creating my artwork...selling on Etsy....

After some prompting by my friends, I have decided to link my blog, myspace account, and my new store on etsy.com together. For the past six months I have been devoting alot of my time to creating my artwork and wearable pieces. I have decided to put a link up on here so you can check it out easily. Let me know if you like anything that you see, any suggestions, or comments. Enjoy!!


http://www.juvalee13.etsy.com/

Some samples of my work










I have made a promise to donate 20% of the sale price (excluding shipping) to go to the Sudan Project at Ginghamsburg Church. To learn more about this awesome project click on the link below:
http://ginghamsburg.org/sudan/ or http://www.thesudanproject.org/

dandelion in a whirlwind part 2

I was reading over my past blogs this weekend, after being reminded by some friends that just started their own blogs, and realized that I haven't posted much, really nothing, since we made our big move to be closer to family and feel "at home".

One blog in particular that I was reading was the "dandelion in a whirlwind" so I aptly named this new one "dandelion in a whirlwind part 2". In the first blog, I threw out alot of questions....thoughts....not really expecting any one to answer. I in fact didn't get any responses or comments...which was fine, since I really wasn't looking for an answer.

I feel as if since we have moved, things are finally starting to fall into place and make a little sense. Of course things haven't really fallen into place, but a new sense of awareness is present.

I've been reading this fabulous book called "Postmarked Heaven" by Jack Cavanaugh. This must-read is the story of four different individuals, from four different places in the world, and from four different time periods. They are short stories, or letters from heaven, explaining about how once these individuals passed through the veil, and arrived in heaven, their lives on earth finally made sense. One story in particular was about Shankala. She despised wealth and riches on earth. She saw too many heartaches from individuals who achieved or never received wealth and riches because she saw how those riches brought a sense of worry, envy and unhappiness into others lives. When she would read the scriptures of how when you go to heaven, after living a life that pleased the Lord, you received 'unimaginable treasures', she felt a sense of sadness, because she wasn't looking forward to those troublesome riches. But once she passed through the veil it all made sense. The treasures, by this authors interpretation, were the people that received Christ because of her faithful obedience to serve the Lord with her life. The "treasures" were in fact people!!!

I feel like in some way, I'm passing throught the "veil of understanding". While a dandelion is beautiful, bright and yellow in it's prime, when it gets blown and tossed by the wind, it is also beautiful. And I've come to believe that it is the most beautiful thing that I've seen in a long while. The seeds blow away....and plant many many more dandelions!!

I've come to realize that I shouldn't be so upset when things don't go the way that I have planned and deep frustration and hurt result from the dissappoitment. It's okay to break and be tossed by the wind, while trusting in the Lord, because you're planting seeds for others that you may never know until you reach the threshold of heaven's pearly gates. Nothing is insignificant.....and 'we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ' (Romans 8:28)