Well everyone, it's 3:30am and once I go to bed and wake up it's my silent time. I talked to PJ and decided that not talking to him at all isn't an option I think is going to benefit this. So the final say in this is that I'll talk to him when I wake up for no certain designated amount of time, but just to have our normal morning talk (I love you, Good morning, How did you sleep? What did you dream about?) and then at night when we do that normal talk (I love you, goodnight, sleep well, have good dreams). And if I want to tell him that I love him in the middle of the day, well that's okay too as long as it doesn't turn into a big conversation where I get distracted from my goal. I also prayed about it and have felt God tell me that getting rid of the internet completely isn't necessary that it's about getting away from the distracting parts...like Facebook. So I'm going to use the computer, but for the purpose of blogging, reading things about religion, and listening to sermons and whatnot online. Not for Facebook, not for WoW (yes, I've been playing World of Warcraft...), nope none of that!
This is going to be tough.
But I think having quiet time with oneself is really essential. I also think it's going to give me some time to connect more with God and really get my spirit aligned with where it needs to be.
So here we go, I'm off to sleepyland here in about five minutes :)
Showing posts with label god. Show all posts
Showing posts with label god. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Christianity should be about faith, not religion.
This goes for just about everything in general dealing with "religion"...it should be about faith. It really upsets me how much we as Christians fight over all the things we don't have in common instead of focusing on all the great things that we share. I remember talking to a friend who went with her church on a missions trip and her church wouldn't let another church there work with them just because that church wasn't Baptist and instead was a Non-Denominational Church. Really?
Really?
In the end we all, for the most part, are united on two things:
1. A belief in God.
2. A belief in Jesus Christ as our savior.
Why do dwell on all the things that we don't agree on? Part of it is our human nature to want to be "right." Every individual person has to be "right" as often as possible, and if someone's opinion differs from our own (even very slightly) then they are labeled as wrong. Sure, we can all have very strong faith in what we believe is the truth about Christianity and the Bible...but when you think about it in a realistic way you should be able to admit that everything we believe is just an opinion. Some people have the opinion that the Bible is the be all end all of our religion. Others believe it was written by man, translated by man, etc and because of our free will it could be flawed. And still even another group doesn't put much faith in it as a religious text whatsoever. As the love of my life Patrick said, yesterday I think, "Everyone is just as sure that their belief is right that you believe that yours is, how passionate you are is just how passionate they may be." Or as I've heard it said before, "Opinions are like buttholes, we all have them and they all stink." As much as I may believe one way and think it's right (because again, it's human nature) another person may believe the exact opposite thing and have just as much certainty that they are right.
In the end when you just constantly bring up all those differences in opinions, our religion begins to divide. You end up with separate sects of Christianity...Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal. There is a group who tries to get themselves out of those labels and call themselves non-denominational. For years I've been a part of that following and have enjoyed it thoroughly, yet I still see that they preach on what they believe to be right and there seems to be only a bit more wiggle room there when compared to other more strict sects. I really want a movement to start in Christianity. That movement is about bringing back the relationship of people to Christ and bringing up the common points instead of focusing on differences.
For years now I've been called into youth ministry, but haven't actually made much effort in following that calling. At first I ignored it because I didn't think that my ex-husband would go along for the ride (while we were married obviously). My next excuse was that I was scared, I had a spirit full of fear of the unknown. Thankfully that one went away when I was watching a Hillsong United DVD and one of their youth pastors talked about her initial fear in entering ministry. After that it was pure laziness that put me off. But no more. You can only ignore what God puts on your heart before you give in and realize, "This is what I was made for." I'm not sure how this whole thing will unfold, but I do know that God will be beside me every single step of the way...and if God is with you, you're covered. I am contacting the leader of the local Young Life chapter tomorrow to talk about working as a youth leader with them. Here's the thing, it's about gaining experience and knowledge. I want to get to know what it's like to lead the youth before I work on my ultimate calling of working to unite people by faith as I mention above. I think youth ministry is the first step, that's my "original calling," but over this time I've realized that in the end it's about uniting people for the cause of Heaven and working to break the barriers that divide us.
Anyways, I'll have another post (probably similar in nature) tomorrow...but for now I need to continue working lol. Keep safe everyone, and don't be blinded by those divisions.
Really?
In the end we all, for the most part, are united on two things:
1. A belief in God.
2. A belief in Jesus Christ as our savior.
Why do dwell on all the things that we don't agree on? Part of it is our human nature to want to be "right." Every individual person has to be "right" as often as possible, and if someone's opinion differs from our own (even very slightly) then they are labeled as wrong. Sure, we can all have very strong faith in what we believe is the truth about Christianity and the Bible...but when you think about it in a realistic way you should be able to admit that everything we believe is just an opinion. Some people have the opinion that the Bible is the be all end all of our religion. Others believe it was written by man, translated by man, etc and because of our free will it could be flawed. And still even another group doesn't put much faith in it as a religious text whatsoever. As the love of my life Patrick said, yesterday I think, "Everyone is just as sure that their belief is right that you believe that yours is, how passionate you are is just how passionate they may be." Or as I've heard it said before, "Opinions are like buttholes, we all have them and they all stink." As much as I may believe one way and think it's right (because again, it's human nature) another person may believe the exact opposite thing and have just as much certainty that they are right.
In the end when you just constantly bring up all those differences in opinions, our religion begins to divide. You end up with separate sects of Christianity...Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal. There is a group who tries to get themselves out of those labels and call themselves non-denominational. For years I've been a part of that following and have enjoyed it thoroughly, yet I still see that they preach on what they believe to be right and there seems to be only a bit more wiggle room there when compared to other more strict sects. I really want a movement to start in Christianity. That movement is about bringing back the relationship of people to Christ and bringing up the common points instead of focusing on differences.
For years now I've been called into youth ministry, but haven't actually made much effort in following that calling. At first I ignored it because I didn't think that my ex-husband would go along for the ride (while we were married obviously). My next excuse was that I was scared, I had a spirit full of fear of the unknown. Thankfully that one went away when I was watching a Hillsong United DVD and one of their youth pastors talked about her initial fear in entering ministry. After that it was pure laziness that put me off. But no more. You can only ignore what God puts on your heart before you give in and realize, "This is what I was made for." I'm not sure how this whole thing will unfold, but I do know that God will be beside me every single step of the way...and if God is with you, you're covered. I am contacting the leader of the local Young Life chapter tomorrow to talk about working as a youth leader with them. Here's the thing, it's about gaining experience and knowledge. I want to get to know what it's like to lead the youth before I work on my ultimate calling of working to unite people by faith as I mention above. I think youth ministry is the first step, that's my "original calling," but over this time I've realized that in the end it's about uniting people for the cause of Heaven and working to break the barriers that divide us.
Anyways, I'll have another post (probably similar in nature) tomorrow...but for now I need to continue working lol. Keep safe everyone, and don't be blinded by those divisions.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Small things are just as awesome.
God always provides all that I need, and lots of what I want. I was so worried about finances, but I've done the math and we're going to be fine. That includes tithing, bills, rent, car payment, insurance payment, gas to get the kids, etc. Thank God for providing, and that's just with me UNDERESTIMATING my pay (^_^). Anyways God came through on something small today. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not, but I'm just going to thank God either way. We've had major issues with our computer. Major. Everytime we get it fixed within two days we get the blue screen of death and aren't able to get Windows to start again. We've had to get it fixed three or four times now. Anyways so we got the blue screen of death earlier...again. I was obviously not too happy about seeing it again, but I trusted. I prayed and said that I knew I had been behind on devotionals and my blog and that I needed the computer to be able to write that blog and share my views on God. Then I remembered a sermon I heard about how powerful words are...positive as well as negative. So I breathed in, calmed down, and wrote "I WILL WORK" on a post-it note and stuck it to the screen and kept on praying.
And for the first time...this computer recovered from blue screen syndrome. So thanks to that, I'm able to update you guys :). I'm not writing as much as I'd like, but I'm also at work and need to be you know...working.
And for the first time...this computer recovered from blue screen syndrome. So thanks to that, I'm able to update you guys :). I'm not writing as much as I'd like, but I'm also at work and need to be you know...working.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Today is the start of something wonderful and beautiful.
I wrote the love of my life a letter last night and told him that I wanted to be able to share my faith with him. The long story short is that I used to be very active in church, strong in my faith, and that was a very happy time in my life. Then things went south, I fell away from God and went down a road I wish I hadn't went down. I associated myself with people who didn't uplift me, instead they brought me down and took me down the wrong path. I want to make something clear, it wasn't that they weren't religious. In fact, some of the most loving and uplifting people I have in my life aren't religious (such as Robbie, who is an atheist) and some of the ones who have brought me down the most have called themselves Christians (a particular woman comes to mind, but I have forgiven her in my heart now and so I won't name names).
No, it wasn't that they had a lack of faith, it was a myriad of other reasons. Some "friends" wanted to do nothing around me but talk negatively about others, some wanted me to participate in things that were against my personal code of ethics, and others were just...well, not the kind of people I needed to be around. The sad thing is that when you begin to fall away from God, all of these things begin to seem "not that bad" and before you know it you are so far away from the right direction that you don't even know up from down anymore. The next thing I know I was doing all kinds of things, even the smallest of things that wouldn't matter to others, that I didn't want to do. I was eating fast food every other meal if not every meal, I was further neglecting my health by smoking tobacco in the form of hookah/shisha, I was back to cursing like a sailor (I'm not against cursing by the way, will go into that at a later date), I was drinking, I was being a total bitch, and on top of that there were many other things going wrong that I don't even want to get into publicly. My life was in shambles. It never dawned on me that maybe my loss of faith was to blame for all of things paired with my not having a job nor a steady home. In fact, I should say that the thought did in fact cross my mind...but I was so far gone that I just pushed it away and considered it silly.
At one point I really tried getting back into the swing of things. I was back in church, at the awesome Living Water Christian Fellowship, and things were looking up. I had a very part-time job, but a job nonetheless, and was living with my mom. It wasn't the best life ever, but it was better than what I head previously. I even put my faith in something I was weary of and God showed me a little instant gratification (which He's not always known for lol). I remember walking into Living Water, back before the renovations, and after worship an older lady began talking to me. She had seen me crying while I was singing and just smiled at me and asked, "So...what's your story?" I smiled through tears and began venting. I told her about how my ex-husband was abusive towards me and about the entire custody situation (I'll go into that also at a later date) and how I just couldn't catch a break. She gave me a hug and promised me that things would look up for me. Soon after that it was time for the offering/tithe. I immediately had a thought run through my head, it was a sermon I had heard at The Rock Church in Asheville. I remembered the verse Malachi 3:10...
"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it.
I sat there, with the only five dollars I had to my name clutched in my hand. I remember it vividly because I can recall that it seemed like forever that I sat there contemplating my next move. Should I keep the five dollars and use it for important things like food? Or should I put faith in one of the only times He straight up says, "Test me in this," and just give me last five dollars and know that He will provide the rest? Finally when the basket came by, I took a long deep breath and put in the five dollars. The next thing that happened will be chalked up to many as being just a coincidence, but I don't. Not with every other "coincidence" that has been God related in my life. Anyways so I sat there, almost crying, because I was just thinking, "Oh gosh what did I just do?!" and then it happened. The service let out and the old lady who I had talked to came up and gave me a huge hug. She told me how it was her last Sunday at Living Water because she was moving out of state. She thanked me for talking to her and told me to just always remember that God is in my corner. Right before she walked out of the door she shook my hand and slipped me a twenty dollar bill.
Instant gratification. I put my faith, my full faith, in the Lord and I was met with him giving me a sign that it was the right choice.
Whew so anyways I swear there was a point to this other than my rambling.
Ah, well I guess I'll get back to my original point. I've realized at this time in my life that God brought Patrick (PJ) to me. He's an amazing man and my soul mate. I believe that he was put on this earth for me, and I was put on this earth for him. I've also spent time thinking about and noticing that there's no other way to put it...he's the other half of my spirit. That being said, yesterday his ex- wrote him a text and talked about how she had a boyfriend now that she loves who prays with her and prays over her life. It inspired me. I wanted to make sure that Patrick knew that I do the same for him. I wake up every day and thank God for him, thank God for my children, and pray over our lives because I want to show my appreciation for him every single day. I brought up to him yesterday that I'm sad over how my life has gone in the almost year before I met him. Sure I tried to get back to God, but it just didn't happen. But then yesterday it hit me that I no longer want to be this stray sheep I've been. I want to be back in the arms of God and loved for all of eternity!! And I want to share that with Patrick.
I've told him now that I want to continue my past pursuit of becoming a youth pastor. Sure, going to school for computer programming may seem more "realistic" but God has had this calling for my life for as long as I can remember and I want to follow the path I believe I was meant to follow. I want to begin being active in church again the way I was at The Rock church. I want to volunteer, I want to go on mission trips, I want to be immersed in the Spirit every minute of EVERY DAY!!!
Now for anyone who doesn't know me, this may seem a little off kilter from my personality. What most people don't realize is that even when I fell away from God I still believed in Him, I was still a Christian...I had just gone astray. Yes I have pink hair, yes I have piercings and tattoos...but those are the very same things that I feel will be an advantage for me as a youth pastor. I want to be myself and show people that no matter who you are and what you look like, GOD LOVES YOU. He loves every dot of ink, He loves every piece of metal, He loves your mohawk....your bihawk...heck, even your trihawk haha. He loves every single person for who they are as individuals. And even though this is a hot button issue: He loves you if you're gay. He loves your boyfriend, He loves your girlfriend. I don't care if people want to think I'm some terrible Christian because I'm not against homosexuality, because I don't think I'm going to heaven and having God say, "sorry, you're going to hell because you thought I loved too much." Nope, just can't believe it :). My God, your God, loves every single person on the face of this entire earth and you know what? If there are aliens I bet He loves them too.
Again with the rambling, Gosh this is a long blog entry!
The end of this entry will be like the end of many entries. I am going to make a list of things I want to do or work on not doing today. Things to better myself as a person and as a Christian, because I feel like everyday should be used in a positive way.
List for November 6, 2010
_x_1. I will read Genesis Chapters 1-5.
_x_2. I will find my devotional and do the one for today. (Found a devotional online at upperroom.org and did that one)
_x_3. My devotional should be almost finished, so look for a new one online.
_x_4. I will treat Patrick as my equal and my soul mate.
_x_5. I will not smoke hookah.
_x_6. I reiterate: I WILL NOT SMOKE HOOKAH.
_x_7. I won't eat out, I will cook all of my meals.
_x_8. I will do my job today as best I can, because keeping a job entails working hard at it.
_x_9. I will pray before bed, at the least.
No, it wasn't that they had a lack of faith, it was a myriad of other reasons. Some "friends" wanted to do nothing around me but talk negatively about others, some wanted me to participate in things that were against my personal code of ethics, and others were just...well, not the kind of people I needed to be around. The sad thing is that when you begin to fall away from God, all of these things begin to seem "not that bad" and before you know it you are so far away from the right direction that you don't even know up from down anymore. The next thing I know I was doing all kinds of things, even the smallest of things that wouldn't matter to others, that I didn't want to do. I was eating fast food every other meal if not every meal, I was further neglecting my health by smoking tobacco in the form of hookah/shisha, I was back to cursing like a sailor (I'm not against cursing by the way, will go into that at a later date), I was drinking, I was being a total bitch, and on top of that there were many other things going wrong that I don't even want to get into publicly. My life was in shambles. It never dawned on me that maybe my loss of faith was to blame for all of things paired with my not having a job nor a steady home. In fact, I should say that the thought did in fact cross my mind...but I was so far gone that I just pushed it away and considered it silly.
At one point I really tried getting back into the swing of things. I was back in church, at the awesome Living Water Christian Fellowship, and things were looking up. I had a very part-time job, but a job nonetheless, and was living with my mom. It wasn't the best life ever, but it was better than what I head previously. I even put my faith in something I was weary of and God showed me a little instant gratification (which He's not always known for lol). I remember walking into Living Water, back before the renovations, and after worship an older lady began talking to me. She had seen me crying while I was singing and just smiled at me and asked, "So...what's your story?" I smiled through tears and began venting. I told her about how my ex-husband was abusive towards me and about the entire custody situation (I'll go into that also at a later date) and how I just couldn't catch a break. She gave me a hug and promised me that things would look up for me. Soon after that it was time for the offering/tithe. I immediately had a thought run through my head, it was a sermon I had heard at The Rock Church in Asheville. I remembered the verse Malachi 3:10...
"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it.
I sat there, with the only five dollars I had to my name clutched in my hand. I remember it vividly because I can recall that it seemed like forever that I sat there contemplating my next move. Should I keep the five dollars and use it for important things like food? Or should I put faith in one of the only times He straight up says, "Test me in this," and just give me last five dollars and know that He will provide the rest? Finally when the basket came by, I took a long deep breath and put in the five dollars. The next thing that happened will be chalked up to many as being just a coincidence, but I don't. Not with every other "coincidence" that has been God related in my life. Anyways so I sat there, almost crying, because I was just thinking, "Oh gosh what did I just do?!" and then it happened. The service let out and the old lady who I had talked to came up and gave me a huge hug. She told me how it was her last Sunday at Living Water because she was moving out of state. She thanked me for talking to her and told me to just always remember that God is in my corner. Right before she walked out of the door she shook my hand and slipped me a twenty dollar bill.
Instant gratification. I put my faith, my full faith, in the Lord and I was met with him giving me a sign that it was the right choice.
Whew so anyways I swear there was a point to this other than my rambling.
Ah, well I guess I'll get back to my original point. I've realized at this time in my life that God brought Patrick (PJ) to me. He's an amazing man and my soul mate. I believe that he was put on this earth for me, and I was put on this earth for him. I've also spent time thinking about and noticing that there's no other way to put it...he's the other half of my spirit. That being said, yesterday his ex- wrote him a text and talked about how she had a boyfriend now that she loves who prays with her and prays over her life. It inspired me. I wanted to make sure that Patrick knew that I do the same for him. I wake up every day and thank God for him, thank God for my children, and pray over our lives because I want to show my appreciation for him every single day. I brought up to him yesterday that I'm sad over how my life has gone in the almost year before I met him. Sure I tried to get back to God, but it just didn't happen. But then yesterday it hit me that I no longer want to be this stray sheep I've been. I want to be back in the arms of God and loved for all of eternity!! And I want to share that with Patrick.
I've told him now that I want to continue my past pursuit of becoming a youth pastor. Sure, going to school for computer programming may seem more "realistic" but God has had this calling for my life for as long as I can remember and I want to follow the path I believe I was meant to follow. I want to begin being active in church again the way I was at The Rock church. I want to volunteer, I want to go on mission trips, I want to be immersed in the Spirit every minute of EVERY DAY!!!
Now for anyone who doesn't know me, this may seem a little off kilter from my personality. What most people don't realize is that even when I fell away from God I still believed in Him, I was still a Christian...I had just gone astray. Yes I have pink hair, yes I have piercings and tattoos...but those are the very same things that I feel will be an advantage for me as a youth pastor. I want to be myself and show people that no matter who you are and what you look like, GOD LOVES YOU. He loves every dot of ink, He loves every piece of metal, He loves your mohawk....your bihawk...heck, even your trihawk haha. He loves every single person for who they are as individuals. And even though this is a hot button issue: He loves you if you're gay. He loves your boyfriend, He loves your girlfriend. I don't care if people want to think I'm some terrible Christian because I'm not against homosexuality, because I don't think I'm going to heaven and having God say, "sorry, you're going to hell because you thought I loved too much." Nope, just can't believe it :). My God, your God, loves every single person on the face of this entire earth and you know what? If there are aliens I bet He loves them too.
Again with the rambling, Gosh this is a long blog entry!
The end of this entry will be like the end of many entries. I am going to make a list of things I want to do or work on not doing today. Things to better myself as a person and as a Christian, because I feel like everyday should be used in a positive way.
List for November 6, 2010
_x_1. I will read Genesis Chapters 1-5.
_x_2. I will find my devotional and do the one for today. (Found a devotional online at upperroom.org and did that one)
_x_3. My devotional should be almost finished, so look for a new one online.
_x_4. I will treat Patrick as my equal and my soul mate.
_x_5. I will not smoke hookah.
_x_6. I reiterate: I WILL NOT SMOKE HOOKAH.
_x_7. I won't eat out, I will cook all of my meals.
_x_8. I will do my job today as best I can, because keeping a job entails working hard at it.
_x_9. I will pray before bed, at the least.
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