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Rebirth Of The Phoenix
  
The phoenix was supposedly a bird that, when it died, rose again from it's ashes, or a new phoenix was born from the ashes. This was used to symbolize Christ and the resurrection in early Christian art.

"The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible — a symbol of fire and divinity." Wikipedia This makes me think of the regeneration that God does in our lives, the healing of the hurts and wounds we suffer from the enemy of our souls. It also makes me think of the fact that through Him we have the promise of eternal life. That is not the same thing a immortality as immortality is of the flesh, not the spirit. But it does mean that we will live forever, with Him!

It also speaks to me of the verse Isaiah 61:3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Then too, it was supposedly a bird with gold and red plumes which goes right along with my current handle of redbird.

Welcome to my blog. I hope that you find edification, education and enjoyment here. Below you will find links to different pages on my blog. Each of these pages also contain links to individual blog posts that I have made pertaining to that particular subject.
As I See ItBandit39s BlogFamily Matters
Giggles And Ha Ha39 sIn Reference To Other BlogsJust Stuff
My Songs and PoemsMy TestamonyMy Thoughts
Patriotism And PoliticsPrayerReferencesPsychological
Texas TreasuresThis Is Dedicated To
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A Word About My Testamony Sep 3, 2006 8:50 pm
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I want to make sure that those of you who are reading my testamony truly understand my intent. I feel like some may think that I am engaging in some sort of retribution against those members of my family that harmed me in my life. This is not the case. I love my parents, my siblings with all my heart and have long since forgiven the things that have happened in my past.

My only reason for sharing these things here is so that others who have experienced these same sorts of things can know that freedom is available, healing is possible, God is in His Heaven and He is in control. I have seen, many times, where people have given their testamony but left out the details that I am including and I myself have thought "Oh but you didn't go through what I went through! I'ts just not the same!"
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True Love Sep 3, 2006 6:19 pm
190 Views
I want you . . .
. . .to be happy . . .
. . .to have a fulfilled life . . .
. . .to reach all of your goals . . .
. . .to find peace within yourself . . .
. . .to be successful at everything you do . . .
. . .to realize what a handsome, deserving, marvelous creation of God you are . . .
. . .to know what a gift you are to everyone who knows you . . .
. . .to be the best son, brother, father that you can possibly be to your loved ones . . .
. . .MORE THAN . . .
. . .I WANT YOU!!!!!

© Cecilia Redman 2006
5 Comments
My Testamony Part Seven Sep 2, 2006 9:43 pm
161 Views
Disclaimer:
I want first of all to let everyone know that what I am about to reveal is not because I am living in the past or because I am holding on to it. I am not still wearing my grave clothes, so to speak.

A testimony is simply speaking the truth of what God has done in one's life, personal experience of His love, grace, power, glory. For a biblical example of a testimony please see Acts 26:1-23

At the age of thirteen I had finally had enough of my step-fathers morning visits and ran away from home. Unfortunately, two of my older sisters found me at the bus station just before my bus was due to come in and drug me back home. When I got there my mother began to rant and rave at me and in my own defense I told her why I had left.

One of my sisters had also been abused by our real dad and apparently was not aware that I had been as well. She was 18 at the time and she proceeded the beat the tar out of me, screaming at me "How dare you use what happened to me as an excuse for your foolishness?" "How dare you accuse dad like this?" "How dare you mock what happened to me?" etc.

My mom did nothing and after 5 or 10 minutes of her sitting on me, pummeling me about the head my step-dad pulled her off of me. At that point both she and I received the shock of our lives.

My mom turned to my step-dad and said, "I warned you, before she ever came home from that foster home, that she knew how she got rid of her real daddy, and that if you ever got her mad at you, she would accuse you of the same thing!"

After that night, I gave up. I had started drinking and smoking at around the age of 8, off and on, whenever things got bad, whenever I felt abandoned by God. I had also started experimenting with drugs by this time. That night was the beginning of my voluntary journey into hell.
1 comment
Dedicated To All My Friends Here At BC Sep 2, 2006 8:38 pm
Mood: 56, 231 Views
The Plan

In life's great race He made a plan,
For all the times we need a hand.
He told us just what we should do.
He gave you, Me! He gave me, You!

So when your heart feels hard and dry,
You need a place to lean and cry,
Life seems to be empty and colder,
You'll always know you have my shoulder

And when nothing seems to be going right,
When tears and worries fill up my night,
When into the depths of despair I'm falling,
I know that out to you I'll be calling

And if in this race, still uncompleted,
We find ourselves both quite depleted,
We will find we will both go so much further,
When we each lean upon and support the other.


By: Me

© Cecilia Redman 2006[/bg]
9 Comments
We Interupt This Program For A Special News Report Aug 29, 2006 9:35 am
190 Views
New Flash:

Late yesterday evening, this reporter spoke to one Matthew _______________, son of a member of this web-site known as redbird 1122. This family member reported that Ms. Redbird would soon be a grandmother for the 9th time.

Mr. __________ and his wife Amy are expecting their third child in February or March of 2007.

After speaking to Mr. _____________, this reporter spoke to Ms. Redbird to get her reaction to this news. Ms. Redbird's response was enthusiastic to say the least. When asked what she would prefer, a boy or a girl, Ms. Redbird's response was that whatever the Lord gave would be fine with her but she prayed that God would bless them with a girl since the couple already has two beautiful sons.

This reporter will keep you updated on the progress of this story as it progresses. Now back to your regular programming.
4 Comments
My Testamony Part Six Aug 28, 2006 11:37 am
Mood: 15, 180 Views
Disclaimer:
I want first of all to let everyone know that what I am about to reveal is not because I am living in the past or because I am holding on to it. I am not still wearing my grave clothes, so to speak.

A testimony is simply speaking the truth of what God has done in one's life, personal experience of His love, grace, power, glory. For a biblical example of a testimony please see Acts 26:1-23

I was in Jr. High during this time. My step-dad's house was in a different school district than the one I was in at the foster home. I was back with kids I had gone to elementary school with and back to being one of the school losers.

I'd grown up poor and many of the kids I'd grown up with had shunned me after my dad went to prison while in elementary. I had even overheard one girl tell a newcomer to stay away from me because her mom had told her that I had done bad things with my dad.

I did have a few friends, other losers and ne'r do wells. One day while waiting for the bus after school one of my friends came up to me, angry, and said that another of my friends had told her I had been calling her bad names. I hadn't done this and of course denied it. My friend hauled off and hit me in the face with her fist. Then she said if I didn't say I was sorry that she would hit me again. I told her that I was sorry that she believed I would say something like that about her but that I hadn't. She said for me to come on, we were going to fight and I told her that she was my friend and I had nothing to fight with her over. I told her that I was a Christian and that God said to turn the other cheek. Then she hit me again and insisted that I fight her. I refused and she turned and walked away. Everyone thought I was stupid to just stand there and let her hit me, not once, but twice, and not strike back. But it wasn't me, it was God.

I got the tar beat out of me by my mom when I got home with two black eyes, for not fighting back as well. But somewhere, down deep inside of me I knew that I had done what God wanted me to do.

Shortly after that incident my mom and step-dad bought a trailer house and we moved back into the school district where I had been attending school while in the foster home. I didn't see any of the kids from the school where this incident occured for years.

About five years later I went with my step-sister from my dad's second marriage to visit a friend of hers. Upon walking into the house I discovered that this friend was my old friend who had hit me back in Jr. High. She recognized me as well.

She came up to me, put her arms around my neck and told me that she was a Christian. That she never forgot what had happened that day and that what I had done that day or what I hadn't done, had been a turning point in her life.

If you have read the rest of my testamony you may remember me speaking of the pastor and his wife who came and prayed for me in the hospital when I was a baby. Well, it just so happens that one of his daughters was in the crowd at the school that day and she also has approached me since then and told me that the incident witnessed to her as well.

There were a lot of people gathered around that day and only God knows how many He was able to speak to because I was willing to listen to His voice. The world is watching us and I am so glad that I, as unworthy as I am, can be used by Him. Each of us can be, if we are willing.
1 comment
My Testamony Part Five Aug 28, 2006 9:55 am
Mood: 91, 178 Views
Disclaimer:
I want first of all to let everyone know that what I am about to reveal is not because I am living in the past or because I am holding on to it. I am not still wearing my grave clothes, so to speak.

A testimony is simply speaking the truth of what God has done in one's life, personal experience of His love, grace, power, glory. For a biblical example of a testimony please see Acts 26:1-23

It was Christmas and I went to visit my mom for the holidays. She had just remarried earlier in the month and so I met my step-dad and step-brothers for the first time during my visit. I was 11 1/2 years old and the entire time I was with them I was inundated by my mom and step-dad with guilt trips for being away from her. Upon my return to my foster home, the second one, as I had been moved after reporting my first foster father for sexual abuse, I told my case worker that I wanted to go home.

Within weeks after moving in with my mom and step-dad my step-dad started taking on the task of waking me for school each morning so my mom could sleep in, supposedly. This was just his excuse however to gain access to me and my bed. Little did I know that I had been set up. Intentionally? I don't know, may never know.

Experience had taught me that telling really didn't do any good. Either you weren't believed or you were blamed for what happened or in some strange way a combination of both. You know, it didn't happen but if it did it was your own fault type of thing.

But once again God was there for me in the form of a couple named Jim and LaWanna Sheppard. They were the youth ministers of the church I went to. These two folks have been a mainstay in my life even into my adult years. Jim passed away several years ago but I still see LaWanna on occassion. I went to her church this past Christmas and she performed my Aunt's funeral this past week. They have been and always will be like parents to me.

During this time was when David Wilkerson was doing his ministry up in New York and it was so popular and spreading across the country. Jim and LaWanna purchased a huge three or four story house in my home town and called it Hope Haven. I and others of the youth group would go and work on it, cleaning it up and gettin it ready to take in young people in need of a place, in need of God, along the lines of David Wilkerson's ministry.

I'd been singing for the Lord since I was very small and I continued to do this as well. I had lots of encouragement from my church family. I was learning and growing in the Lord and I was busy doing His work.

God made me an overcomer then and He continues to make me an overcomer now. I have no strength in and of myself but I have all the strength I need because He is my provider. I can do all things, because He allows and enables me to do all things.
1 comment
My Testamony Part Four Aug 27, 2006 6:32 pm
Mood: 84, 181 Views
Disclaimer:
I want first of all to let everyone know that what I am about to reveal is not because I am living in the past or because I am holding on to it. I am not still wearing my grave clothes, so to speak.

A testimony is simply speaking the truth of what God has done in one's life, personal experience of His love, grace, power, glory. For a biblical example of a testimony please see Acts 26:1-23

Just before I was returned to my mother's home from the foster home she remarried. She had divorced my dad during the 3 years he spent in prison and I was kept from him and his family until I left home for the most part.

During these first 12 years of my life God sent many people into my life who taught me the things I needed to learn to keep from being a total loss. My maternal grandfather loved me dearly and I was a favorite of his. I remember times when the family would gather and he would tell all us children that he was going fishing the next morning, early. Anyone who wanted to go was expected to be up and ready, on their own, or they got left behind. It was his way of leaving the little ones behind without hurting their feelings. I was one of the little ones who couldn't wake up on my own, but grandpa would get the bigger kids busy loading up the truck and he would sneak back in the house and wake me up so I would have just enough time to get ready and run out the door just as he was starting the truck. There were many, many times that my grandpa filled my daddys shoes. He passed away just before I turned 17.

One of my dad's nephews refused to be shut out of our lives by my mom. He would come as often as he could even though he was in the Air Force and served in Viet Nam. I knew that he loved me just because I existed, still does.

One of my sisters boyfriends was the same way. I was his little sweetheart and he always made a point of spending a few minutes with me whenever he came to our house. He too was in the military but he never failed to let me know that he loved me just like I was. He died in a drowning accident when I was 8 or 9.

These men were my fathers and my brothers. They taught me that there were good men in this world who did not hurt and abuse children or women.

God also sent me women who loved me like mothers. These were those that I went to with questions or turned to when I was hurting. Though I did not, felt I could not, tell them what was going on at home, I knew that I could trust them and that they loved me unconditionally.

God filled the void in a little girls life because He had a purpose for me. He had a plan for my life and He loved me. He sent me people who would help me to learn the things that I should have learned at the feet of my parents.

God always makes a way when Satan comes in and manages to disrupt His plans. He will not be deterred. We must always remember that no matter what Satan throws at us, God has every little detail worked out. And should someone along the way falter, God always has a plan B.
0 Comments
My Testamony Part Three Aug 27, 2006 11:17 am
Mood: 72, 198 Views
Disclaimer:
I want first of all to let everyone know that what I am about to reveal is not because I am living in the past or because I am holding on to it. I am not still wearing my grave clothes, so to speak.

A testimony is simply speaking the truth of what God has done in one's life, personal experience of His love, grace, power, glory. For a biblical example of a testimony please see Acts 26:1-23

I was about 7 years old when my dad went to prison, for indecent exposure to a minor I was to later find out. This would never have happened if someone outside the family had not found out what was going on and forced my mom to turn him in. It was around that time that I also killed the President of the United States.

You see, I had become accustomed to being responsible for everything that went wrong in my world, because I was told I was responsible. I was raised believing that every time I thought or said something bad, if then something bad happened, I was to blame.

Dysfunctional families have a tendency to turn things around so that abused and neglected children take on the task of protecting the parents and the family as a whole. My family was a classic example of this, with each member playing their assigned roles to the hilt.

When I was 11 was when my mother tried to kill me, once by trying to run me down with a car and a second time by strangling me. This too was my fault, for not telling her about something that my 18 year old sister was doing. Something I knew nothing about. When the police officer pulled my mother off of me she fought back and was hurt, which was also my fault.

There are so many times when others have lain the responsibility of their own actions on my shoulders and for years I carried that guilt. But praise God, He has set me free and made me realize that I don't have to carry it anymore. I don't even have to carry the guilt for my own actions if I will just take it to Him in true repentance and ask for forgiveness. And He is faithful to forgive me for my wrongdoing and gentle in His reprimands. He always lovingly shows me when and how I am going astray and guides me back to the right path with care and compassion.

He is willing and able to do this for all of His children. He is waiting for each of us to return to Him. If you are not following Him today, do not think that you have to change before you can go home to Him. Do not think that you must clean yourself up first, for no matter how hard you try you can never do a good enough job. You can go to Him right now, in the condition you are in and He will give you everything you need to cleanse yourself, and help you get the job done as well. He will take away the sin, the guilt, the pain, every burden that loads you down.
2 Comments
My Testamony Part Two Aug 26, 2006 11:47 pm
Mood: 111, 219 Views
Disclaimer:
I want first of all to let everyone know that what I am about to reveal is not because I am living in the past or because I am holding on to it. I am not still wearing my grave clothes, so to speak.

A testimony is simply speaking the truth of what God has done in one's life, personal experience of His love, grace, power, glory. For a biblical example of a testimony please see Acts 26:1-23

Though my parents claimed to be Christians and attended church regularly, life in my home was not as it appeared to the outside world to be. By the time I was 3 or 4 I was already being sexually molested my parents, though my mother, in her ignorance, thought she was doing something protective.

It was around this age that I found myself alone in the sanctuary of the church during Christmas time one year and wandered up onto the pulpit to look at the nativity scene. I will never forget as long as I live the sense of comfort that came over me as I gazed at the baby doll that represented the Christ child laying in the manger. It was from that point forward that I knew, that no matter what happened, He would be with me, and somehow He would protect me. I have written a song that tells a little of this story as well as some of the rest of my testimony. You can read it here I Still Have You

Over the years the abuse continued, escalated, with physical, mental, spiritual and emotional abuse added to the mix. My dad went to prison and I was subjected to sexual abuse by both a foster father and a step-father. I went into a foster home after my mother tried to kill me, twice. During this time I kept wondering why He wasn't protecting me, like I thought He would. It wasn't until much later that I realized that He had been.

You see, while the abuse was happening, I would go away. I have very little memory of any of it. Psychologists and Psychiatrists call it "Dissociative Disorder" and "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder". I call it God's Protection of tender minds that cannot bear the horror of the things that are happening to them. I wrote a poem/song concerning this as well called Were You Being My Daddy

According to the world's thinking, I should be locked up in a rubber room somewhere. But I am so glad that My Lord has overcome the world and the one who controls it for the time being. I still struggle with some of this, finding it difficult to stay on top of it all sometimes. After all, God has not given us the ability to wipe the memories from our minds. It keeps me humble and reliant on Him, day by day, moment by moment, step by step. Without His constant strength and support, no doubt I would be overcome and overwhelmed. But, Praise His Name, He is Faithful, and never leaves or forsakes me.
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