Paul: Just Letters?

I’ve been a baby lately regarding Paul

I don’t know what my problem is, but for the past few months I’ve been semi-disregarding his [obviously amazing] messages because they’re just letters. I can’t get it out of my head that they’re just correspondence. Most of the other books of the bible are stories, histories, or praises. That I understand. I get why Numbers is important, Chronicles, Kings, and Proverbs. I understand why they include the Prophets [major AND minor], and the Gospels are obviously pretty important. Even the tiny, seemingly insignificant books of James and Jude were written by the brothers of Jesus. I mean really; they were Jesus’ brothers! And Revelation, well we’ll see how important Revelation is …

But seriously, I can’t shake this stupid notion that Paul didn’t even meet Jesus before his crucifixion, he wasn’t one of his followers, or even close! He was a persecutor of the guy, for heaven’s sake! And I know that he was obviously saved from that, he was made new on the road to Damascus, but something still nags at me, saying that whether or not he was born again, these are still just letters.

This is really causing a problem with everything right now, and I’m too embarrassed to talk about it with anyone, because it seems so stupid and obvious. I know that Paul’s letters are more than just letters to us. I know that Paul is extremely important, and that the 13 books of the Bible penned by him are beautiful and relevant, and helpful, and hopeful, and condemning, and faithful. I just can’t wrap my mind around it for some reason, and it’s hurting me.

Does anyone understand where I’m coming from? Can anyone help my silly thoughts go away?

Preach It.

I no longer care to portray a false sense of goodness or perfection. I want to show others that He is good and He has is all together. He can take a heart that craves sin and make it thirst for righteousness. He can take a Failure and make her a Victor. He can take our struggles and turn them into strengths. That’s what He’s done for me, what He’s doing for me, and what He’ll keep doing for me.

Giving My Head A Smack [Don't You Love That?]

I’ve been focusing a lot lately on my relationships with people, or my lack thereof.

 

In writing an email to one friend that I seem to be losing, I’ve gained a sense of what I’m doing wrong, and why I’m not succeeding in the relationships that I currently have, as well as why I’m not forging new, intimate friendships.

 

You see, I’ve been praying for friends. I know that sounds pretty pathetic, but I have. I want people that I can be close with, the way I was with Raomi and Erica, before they left school [both within a two month period -- pretty rough]. The strange place that I’m in right now with Joey is amplified with the jealousy I’m feeling at his having close friendships with his roommates, something I really just don’t have with mine. Laura is quiet and spends a lot of time in her room with the door closed, and so we haven’t had much opportunity to get to know each other way down deep. I’m not much of a social butterfly myself, which makes for an awfully silent house most of the time. 

 

I wrote to Cathy and ended up venting these same frustrations about lacking friendships and jealousy; yet at the same time, the wonderful feeling of knowing that I’m in the program that God wants me to be in, loving my classes and my professors, and the way God shows me things every day that I should be doing, or bringing up to others, or focusing on.

 

As soon as I typed out the word focus I knew what was wrong. 

 

I’ve been completely focusing on having no close friends and on my romantic relationship not being what I need it to be, to the point of praying for these things to change. This should not be my focus. I need to be focused on God, on what He’s doing in my life on a daily basis, and how He can be there for me more so than anyone else.

 

Silly me. What was I thinking?

 

I’ve got a paper to write for my Old Testament class, and then I’m going to spend some much-needed time in the Word.

Madison Joy: June 11, 2008

I’ll not stop praying.

For tiny Emily, this precious, miraculous, hero of a little girl.
For Madison, who is singing like the rest of her family from her new home in heaven.
For their parents, who need an incredible amount of hope and strength right now.
For Cathy, who loves these children as her own and would do anything to protect them.

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.

Quieting Love

The Lord your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.
[ Zephaniah 3:17 ]

My city runs along either side of a large river in New Brunswick. I’ve lived here almost all of my life, and so I think nothing of the river running through the middle of my hometown, besides to complain about it taking so long to get to Joey on the other side. It’s hit me quite a bit lately though, that we are very blessed to have this river.

God is so glorious. He sees us through our darkest times, and celebrates with us when we feel on top of the world. God’s glory is shown to us everywhere we turn, if only we take the time to truly look for it. In the power of a storm, the beauty of a child, or the magnificence of time, God takes our breath away, removes the words from our lips, and we take a moment to be caught in his quieting love.

When a friend visited for a weekend in the fall, she was amazed by the beauty and greatness of it. I was taken aback at the mere thought of it being breathtaking in the first place! Then, again this week, I was out for a drive with a friend when she began talking about how much she loves the river, even after living here for thirty years. The past few weeks I’ve spent babysitting in a home that overlooks the river, and as I sit and watch the current pass by, I am quieted by the stillness of the water on a clear day, or by the anger of the water on a cloudy, rainy day. It really is more beautiful than what I tend to see on a daily basis. God shows His love for us in so many ways — in this case, the simplicity of water running between two banks.

In this and in so many other things every single day, I take God’s love for granted.

Today, while I am struggling through a relationship that needs a drastic overhaul, while I feel imprisoned in my own house by my own overbearing family, God is here. He peeks at me through the curtains that I’ve drawn, and won’t take no for an answer.

I’ve been struggling with prayer lately. Years ago, I would pray for hours a day; often an hour or two in one sitting, which is quite the feat for a fifteen year old. I’ve felt for the past few months or so that I don’t even know how to pray anymore. That I’ve been without it so long that I’ve simply forgotten, or perhaps I don’t have anything to talk about? [Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I don't often have nothing to talk about.]

And doesn’t God have great ways of showing us what we need to hear or learn?

Romans 8:26-28 says this:
“The moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless signs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

self-banishment

God does not send people to hell for not believing in Him or for any other reason. God doesn’t send people to hell at all. Rather, people choose go one of two ways – heaven or hell. Hell is simply the place that is absent of God, void of God and all His goodness. I don’t believe that God desires anyone to be there or punishes anyone for not believing in Him. I believe that we are given free will to choose our path and the path that leads to hell is the life that we’ve chosen to walk away from Him, to be void of Him in our lives.

Hell is the place that is absent of God.

Heaven is God in all His glory.

(source)

I’ve got a friend who has always found it difficult to believe in God because she doesn’t see how a loving, caring god could send people to hell. I think this excerpt is one of the more well-put viewpoints on the matter.

I believe that if you are a follower of God, if you know Him and serve Him, if you attempt to align your walk with the path He has set out before you, and if you give yourself, sins and all, to Him to be forgiven and washed clean, you will spend eternity in Heaven.

God doesn’t banish anyone to hell. One does that all on his own by choosing to live his own life, separate from God.

The choice is yours. No one else can make it for you.

shadow of death

i survived
the darkest night

and as long as you love me,
i won’t stop fighting.

how could i have made it through without your help and guidance?
surely i would not have.

i think i may need you again.
hopefully it’s not too much to ask.

sure we spend a lot of time together, but when do we talk? certainly not often. or at least not often enough.

i hope that someday we’ll get to the point where we can talk to each other without it ending up as a fight. we haven’t had much luck with that lately.

to my love : you are the stars

tonight, i became a martian.

and i’ve come to decide that you are the stars.
not a single, marvelous star, but the whole starry host.

you reached down through the universe and plucked me from my sad, sorry existence, and showed me the light and life beyond all this. beyond the muck and dirt and earth. out into the sky. up. out. around. surrounding.

sometimes it takes the eyes of a martian child — new eyes, watching the world from a different perspective, taking everything in for the first time — to realize what you’ve got and who you are trying to be.

i want you.
i want to know that you want me.
i do know.
but show me.

---

since i know that you’re reading this, darling, why don’t you start up your own blog and let your feelings out. one that no one knows about but me, so that we can share instead of hiding so many parts of ourselves from each other. i know that you love me. i know that you want me. so show me that. show me what you’ve learned. this is a challenge.

home alone

My last exam of my sophomore year was Saturday night at seven o’clock. I wrote two exams on saturday, my two most important [one being relevant to my major, the other needing a better mark than what I was going in with], so Friday was a day full of stress and worry. At the peak up my upset, on Friday afternoon, I was on the verge of tears and just wanted to give up when I checked my facebook messages to find that I had received one from my mother. She had written me to ask if I would like her to come and pick me up from school on Sunday, rather than me waiting and going back with Joey on Thursday. I began to cry, this time with relief and gratitude towards my ever-thoughtful mother.

On her way down, my mother picked up my sister from her respective university, just for the drive and the help packing and moving. After dropping off half of my possessions at the apartment where I will be living in the fall, we packed the rest of my stuff into the car, had some supper, and headed home.

While it felt extremely nice to be finished, to head home where there would be no work to be done [at least for the first little bit], I knew that I was leaving something crucial behind: my social life.

Oh, and my boyfriend.

We don’t often spend time apart. At school, for the past two years, we’ve lived in the same residence buildings, meaning we were never more than a few steps away from each other. This year especially, neither of us had roommates, we lived on the same floor, and had a lot of the same friends, so we were basically inseparable. Which makes these past few days especially rough. He is still at school, surrounded with friends, and no rules or overbearing parents, while I’m stuck at home with no one but my bratty, fifteen year old brother to keep me company, and parents that have been breathing down my neck since I stepped in the door on Sunday night. Can you tell me in what way this is fair?

finding myself

it’s been a long time since i’ve expressed my feelings. in any way.

let’s hope that this proves to break my lockdown.