pursuing the upward call with fear and trembling

Uncensored

2012-01-30T19:14:00.000-08:00

God definitely is uncensored, why would He not want us to be?? So many things swirling around inside. Wish I had the time and ability to lay them all out cohesively and concisely. Faith and Reason still going at it, just like in the Enlightenment days.

Why do so many think a literal 6 day Creation has to be or else the Bible loses credibility??? What is the true nature of how the ancient peoples in that time understood Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch??? How do we get ourselves to be able to see through the prism that they did and not our own presuppositions???

When did death begin??? How do we understand the *spiritual death* of Adam & Eve as being separated from God and lost in sin??? Why does the entire OT not discuss hell as it has traditionally been understood over the ages??? Sheol does not mean hell. Why did Paul make no mention of it when it is the one thing we are to most seek to avoid and escape???

Why would God whose self-definition is Love, who left His position as God to become a human, and not just any human but the lowest level one- a slave, allow most of His creation to be eternally separated from Him forever??? Sin is defined as missing the mark of Gods perfect holiness. Hmmm how could ANY human EVER achieve such a thing??? Would that not make us equal to God???

Why does chaos happen as it does??? Some lioves perish before even leaving the womb. Some die by natural disaster because they were in the wrong plave at the wrong time. Some die lingering, tortuous deaths of sheer agony. Why????

Just going to lay out stuff for awhile. Hopefully some may stop by and take a peek.

Pinball

2012-01-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

Ever feel like a pinball??? Life just bounces you here there and everywhere and when you get past the flippers you just get sprung back into the game all over again??? Seemed like a good analogy to me lately. The internet has truly been a smorgasbord for sharing all kinds of things amongst everyone. Communication is a very powerful thing and of course can be done for good or evil.

Navigating God and His Will has been a pinball-like journey mostly. Even more so last several years as broader discussion has been taking place from so many angles and perspectives. The quandary my soul has been in lately, and i say soul because it involves all of me not just my mind, is coming to grips with absolutist paradigm versus subjective/relative one. I am a hopeful universalist, hoping that we all end up together forever with God in whatever way He sees fit for it to be. But the pinball spins and bounces and careens all over as those voices which declare such a hope to be anathema to the Bible, to Jesus and Gof the Father just shout over and over. There is one correct interpretation of Scripture and the Holy Spirit makes sure all true believers know it. True believers who have been born again will experience the unlimited joy and fullness of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Presence in such a way their lives will be nonstop testimonies of their faith and obedience to Him.

Problem is.....what if you believe and DON'T experience all that as espoused??? I ask this in a contemplative way. I see both sides played out across the net, in books, articles, sermons you name it. How do you deal with questioning when the very act of questioning itself is made to feel like a sinful act of rebellion itself???? How to avoid the serpents tempting words??? *surely God hath not said* God respected Jobs questioning Him and seeking answers didn't He?? Still need to think through more on all this. Please share if anything rings true at all for you.

Fully Alive

2012-01-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

Rachel Held Evans has several links on her sunday superlatives post at her place. One in particular was especially moving to me, Anne Jacksons farewell post. Hopefully you have discovered Anne and her writing at some point in time. Lets just say the girl got talent lol I found her a few years back and she really touched me because i was fairly new to blogging and mustered up the courage to write about my struggles with sex/love addiction, so had she. I emailed her as well as commented on her blog. She was truly kind and compassionate in responding. i loved her wit and wisdom in how she shared her life and challenges.

Anne has faced a year of turmoil in her own words. But she leaves with joy, hope and freedom as resounding themes within. Alive was her final word. She was ALIVE!!! I just really am moved by her words and her story. I sure hope we all hear from her in different ways as life goes on. I dont know if she will ever read this but THANK YOU ANNE!!!

1969

2012-01-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

Quite a year. Moonlanding, Amazin Mets won the World Series. For me though, tragic- my dad passed away in august from malignant melanoma. I said the year because it stands as a symbol for me of so many things. Life, mystery,loss,pain,grief,hope,fun,change. All these things represented by one year. Incredible how that can be so.

I came across a blog today that has just blown me away at her candidness and humor in talking aboutr 2 topics that are like dueling shadows in my lefe- fear and death. Oh Em GEE!!!! Her name is Torre and shes in Australia my dream place i have always wanted to go too!!!! Torre puts into words and story so much of what I think and feel and attempt to say in my dubious renderings lol. www.fearfuladventurer.com I know i will now be a frequent reader of hers :)

Fear and death became endlessly entertwined for me inwardly in 1969. I dont think a day has gone by since my mom told my sister and I that our dad had died without those 2 lurking around in my consciousness. When will it happen to me??? How??? Why?? Any way to stop it, escape it or avoid it??? Death happens to all of us, accept it and live life. Welll yes but....... For me, the reality of it happening overshadowed being able to accept it. Plus, knowing I should accept and move on but was not doing so, just made it doubly bad!!!!

Torre has quotes from different people, mainly I think people who sail and face fear and death on the open sea. They share their coping techniques. Very cool to read. It is a huge help to discover someone who talks about these things in this way!!!!! The awesome thing about Torre is she takes risks ANYWAY!!! Having the fear there the wh9le time!!!! She makes a wonderful point about expanding your comfort zone lil by lil day by day and week by week. Superb insight and advice indeed.

My *inner voice* seems to delight in making me feel shame.guilt,embarrasment and despair over having my fears and over lost opportunities over time because of them. Well, I cant tell my *inner voice* to take a hike and realize it is NOT Gods voice!!!!!! Linking the 2 has been like quicksand, slowly surely pulling me down, despite trying to find all kinds of ways to break free!!!! God spoke to me through Torres words He didnt audibly whisper in my ear YOUR Ok and He most likely never will speak that way!!!!! I just am processing all I read on Torres blog and how God is helping me with it too. Fear can be like a nagging habit, just wont seem to go away even when it has been discarded. Key is the negative power of it can be disarmed!!! Praise GOD!!!!! Here is to 2012 being a letting go of 1969 and breaking free from fear and death as shadows that haunt. I will seek to wave and wink at them best i can hopefully!!!

Still Some Thoughts

2011-12-11T16:12:00.000-08:00

Has been difficult to write for awhile now. Not sure exactly why. So amny different things swirling within my head. Just tough to focus than it used to be hmmm no it has nothing to do with turning 50!!! LOL

Is Genesis story from Creation to the Fall literal reality or allegorical story??? Does it matter in an ultimate sense??

Is it possible Adam or Cain are satan as spoken of by Jesus when he is telling the jewish religious leaders that they are children of their father who was a murderer from the beginning??? Satans fall from heaven is usually depicted as happening in Isaiah, but context reveals it is actually speaking about king Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.

Will God being us all back to live with Him in whatever way He chooses or is hell just as traditionally understood where eternal separation is the final decree??? Is there enough evidence to question the traditional view by examining Jesus words on hell??? Is there reason to consider He meant something else??

What about verses that speak of Jesus being the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe??? That God bound all of us under disobedience so all could be shown grace and forgiveness???? Does John 3:16 mean God so loved only those in the world who were either *elect*, believers or loved Him??

How do fear and love coexist??? Proverbs says *the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom* Gospels say God is love. Hell is most terrifying reality of all, and God who is Love is the One who made it so. IF........ it is as traditionally understood. Perfect love casts out fear, but the sermon *Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God* focused on fear to scare the hell out of people.

Just thoughts that hopefully lead to discussions. Especially in places elsewhere by people whi frame them much more profoundly than I.

Various Wonderings

2011-11-14T19:01:00.000-08:00

Why do so many become so concerned with being right and others wrong???? The Bible has existed for a longgggggggggg time now, incredible minds remain distinct in interpretation of it, even what would be deemed core elements such as Jesus atonement, eternal destination and the work of the Holy Spirit. I don't think the Holy Spirit is or seeks to foster schizophrenia so other answers nust exist as to why the differing interpretations exist.

Physical appearance. Such a major factor from the moment of birth. Babies viewed as ugly or having deformities and defects physically have been shown in case studies to recieve less touch,attention and positive regard than cute and attractive babies. Touch has been determined to be a huge factor in emotional wellbeing and feeling a deep sense of self-love from very early on. If Jesus were ugly.........let your mind wander as you think about it. How would He be responded too??? Look at almost every painting,drawing,sculpture which portrays Jesus. All are attractive and beautiful, except perhaps when He is on the cross. I hope one day God will provide an answer as to why He made people physically unattractive in a world where the scale is almost 100% tipping toward attractivness as giving an edge to life and living it.

More thoughts to come. Hope some will come by and comment.

Fear Death Sex Love

2011-11-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

These subjects represent major themes in our existence as I see it. I just got done reading a deep and intriguing post at Dr Richard Becks blog. Experimental Theology. If you are not familiar with it I urge you to check it out!!!! The post I was captivated by dealt with fear and denial of death within ourselves and American culture at large and how love is the key to being set free from death in all its nuances. i hope my explanation did justice to Dr Becks intent.

I have shared often over the years on here my struggle with fear, most notably fear of death. No wonder Dr Becks post resounded so strongly inside me. I find such a paradox in so many ways with all the subjects i used to title this post. My paternal grandmother influenced me as a child to be fearful, and it became a modus operandi i ended up adopting, even without fully consciously knowing. Death ends life and stops all of existence as i know it, strictly physically and mentally speaking. Fear of death comes from the feelings of dying and the imagination that can construct all kinds of wild wonderings of what may await once death has happened.

As a Christ-follower and believer, His resurrection lends itself to assuaging this fear and ribbing death of its stranglehold. However, toss in theological issues which cause doubt of qualifying as belonging to Jesus even WITH a faith and commitment of self to Him and everything goes haywire. His perfect love is declared to remove fear because He does not punish. Well, ummmmm isn't hell the ULTIMATE punishment??? Throw in doubting if you have done enough, believed enough and been *enough* whatever that means and what seemed so simple really isn't anymore.

Sex... ah well,,, i shall deal with that another time. LOL Hope to explore all these issues as i write more to come. I hope some who want to share and discuss these things will find there way here. I thank God He desires exploration and isn't sitting on His throne simply demanding a certain performance level be achieved to rest in Him in relationship.

Is It OK to Be Ok??

2011-10-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

When I was in jr college, transactional analysis was popular. I even took a class on it. A book dealing with the whole schema of TA was written in mid-70's I believe called *I'm OK- You're OK* Basically TA blends Freudian concepts within its own construct of relational and conversational dynamics to gain insights into our personalities. Parent,Adult and Child replace Superego, Ego and Id. I liked alot of it and different ideas it dealt with.

Does God want us to be OK?? Reformed theology posits God views us all as totally depraved and destined for hell, except if we are one of the *elect* Just how you become an *elect* or how you know you are one is up for grabs, but God is completely sovereign, He does what is right because He IS God, even if it may not seem so to us ignorant mortals who are but mere dust anyway. Yes you will note my bias in my wording. Calvinism is a hard thing for me,especially when I hear preachers,teachers and others make it so it might actually be......true.

God is love. Love requires freedom in order to be love does it not?? If God predestined us to be a certain way then how can that be love ??? Force and choice are 2 huge concepts we face as well. God is able to do anything He wants except....not be God. God never tempts us, as James tells us in his book. God does force our hand though right??? He forces us to choose, amongst various options. Does He want us to be ok?? Does He want us to be conflicted??? I ask this thinking about our old and new nature. Will it be a conflict until we die??? If so, how are we to be ok?? Is repenting an ongoing thing, like confession?? If we are all brutally honest we sin so much all the time, not in behaviors necessarily but in thoughts,attitudes and desires.

I hope to write more on this. Get some to stop by and comment. It is good to write again. As always, feel free to share if you happen by.

Help

2011-10-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Been a longggggggg time since last post. Just lots going on inside my head. The image of who I want to be *in Christ* vs who I see reflecting back in the mirror. Thinking back to my atheist roommate in Bible College- yes a secular school was allowed to live in our dorms. He said i was the best example of a christian he knew. What happened since then??

Does God just want good behavior??? No, He wants good hearts, He wants love. Why then does so much violence happen and seem to go unchecked?? So much pain and agony experienced by so many for so long??? Countries and parts of the world who know nothing of what Americans call *the good life* at all ever??

I had a tragedy occur very recently with a relative taking their own life. They left behind incredible people who will have to deal with this the rest of their lives. Why?? No note left to give any reason, no telling of truly loving his kids so they would at least have that to have toi hold onto when painful memories hit. Why??? I know intellectually and in faith. My emotions though, as for what seems like forever,can't quite get a grip. I want to live in love and just let it flow like a river. I struggle, I waver, i fail. Help O God Please help.

Accept

2011-07-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

I read a blog of someone today. She spoke of things that resonate deeply in me as well. Feeling responsible for having things done to me, like i deserved it or brought it on myself. Feeling like I have to do something somehow to recieve love and give love. I feel so crazy at times because of how long i have struggled with this. I do not even know really how to even identify where it comes from. My trouble is also i am savvy enough to know intellectually what i need to do and what i need to let go. Internally and emotionally though I feel all locked up and stuck like I am in a maze of mirrors and can't find the way out.

I cannot do anything to make God love me anymore. I cannot do anything to make God love me any less. I believe this but part of me struggles to believe it, mainly for me. Somehow I ingrained certain beliefs and emotional reactions that imprison me from just living freely in love grace and peace. I will have to process this more as i seek to write it out. I know all too well how to writr and talk about these things, but not when i am doing it from a place where I am alking about the seeming nonsense and wackiness of it. I internalized a mechanism of feeling helpless and unable to handle certain things and i think this is the root. I get all flustered when i think of death and get to a point where i just let it be blank and go on, not thinking about it until the next time it comes up. This has been ongoing inside my head for a longggggggggg time. My mind knows it is irrational and unrealistic to let fearing death be such a roadblock, even knowing Jesus has overcome death as something to fear. Somehow something in me feels like I may lack faith,obedience,love and perseverance to really *make it* once I die. Hopefully working through it more again will help. If you stop by and understand or relate to this please comment. Thanks!!!

What Does God Want?

2011-06-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

I can hear the voices all in unison right now- *He has shown thee o man what is good and what the Lord requires of thee. But to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with Thy God* Sweet sounds indeed. Micah 6:8 in song!!! Can't go wrong with that eh?? Micah tells us plain and simple what God wants. Hmmmm guess trouble is our imperfect humanness then, because we as a people sure can get off on the wrong track.....over and over and over again.

Why do we tend to swing to rxtremes?? God wants us to live by faith and be obedient, evangelize to save souls. No, God wants us to seek justice, righteousness, carry out in our actions the message of the Gospel. One side is viewed as conservative, the other as liberal and heaven help us if the 2 should intersect!!!! But isn't that exactly what should happen??? Are they not expressing both sides of a coin??? A good cliche is - *people will not care how much you know, till they know how much you care* I think both sides care and don't care in different ways, depending upon the person and their circumstances.

I am a *hopeful universalist* I hope in the end God will actually redeem everyone. Rob Bells book * Love Wins* has sparked a debate once again on the whole notion of salvation and all it entails. Who's in, who's out. Kind of makes me think of the selection of schools for the NCAA tournament than eternity with God. Yikes. I am not and never will be a calvinist, but they have had a long time of finetuning the TULIP acronym and its meaning. Romans 9 has been a huge bugaboo for me for awhile now. Calvinist teaching regarding election, which goes along with limited atonement, holds to a view that God created some people who would not make it in the end. For reasons known only to God because He is sovereign and all powerful, He chooses to sentence some to eternal torment in hell. What does that verse from Micah say??? *and to love mercy???* * Mercy triumphs over judgment* Didn't God say that through a prophet somewhere???

The entire message of the Gospel and Jesus Himself just diametrically oppose this scenario to my thinking. Why then did God cause the flood??? Why did God destroy sodom and gomorrah??? Why did ananias and sapphira die instantly?? What does Revelation mean when it speaks of *the devil and his angels going into the pit and experiencing the second death???* What about the parable of lazarus and the rich man???

I have certain thoughts on these questions, to be shared later on. I hope to hear from any of you who stop by and read this. Does Romans 9 trouble you?? Does calvinist theology bother you?? These issues are discussed thoroughly many other blogs, but just have to put my own thoughts out there in my lil corner and hope some will comment.

Life Within Life

2011-05-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

Ferris Bueller said life comes at you fast. How true he was. I have tried forever it seems to pull the brakes on life but it never seems to work. Philosophers and Theologians do their best to comprehend life in all its entirety, but thankdully few have the umitigated gall and presumption to declare they have a handle on it all. Unless they possess narcissistic personality disorder. LOL

Free-will vs determinism will pretty much be a neverending topic of discussion until God makes it all perfectly knowm, IF He chooses to do such a thing. Some of us are a lil more neurotic than others, some maybe a lil leaning toward semi-psycho.....functional of course. The notion that because all is decided beforehand by God thus making everything that happens Gods doing has always hit a sour note deep inside. Sooooooooo God gave my dad cancer when he was only 18 and had him get multiple surgeries to remove it as it spread, then he had a window of opportunity to be free of it hopefully for life but a month before the time was to expore the cancer came back??? Thus killing him soon thereafter because it just spread throughout his entire body??? Not quite something I jump for joy thinking was all part of Gods *plan*!!!!

I drive myself crazy alot trying to make heads or tails of it all. Why him?? Why not me??? Why has so much of the world existed in abject poverty virtually since God made us exist??? I end up caught in a maze of wonderment inside my mind and do not know really how to escape it. I can sympathize with workaholics, alcohol and drug abusers and such in a way, because they seek to escape their minds!!! Such a relief to just make the mental machine that is relentless turn OFF!!!!!!

Focusing on love is a superb goal. Why would any of us not want love to be the centerpiece of how we understand life and its ultimate meaning??? Yet..... do we not face that very challenge every day we live??? Is it not a moment by moment needed reminder simply because our humanness makes it so??? Just pretty much thinking out loud here. Hope to do more of it more often on here. Hope some stop by and check it out :)

Mixed Bag

2011-04-16T13:51:00.000-07:00

Various thoughts and stuff so that is why it's a mixed bag. Commotion swirls around Rob Bell's book Love Wins. Subject of hell causing controversy?? Nooooooooo certainly not Riiiiggghtttttttttttttttt There are a few topics within Scripture that seem to garner this response. Young Earth/Old Earth. YEC advocates have been drawing a line in the proverbial sand declaring literal 6 day creation and literal adam & eve or else you are possibly not a believer. Some would draw the same line about the rapture, speaking in tongues, water baptism, you name it. Why is exclusivism the de facto position taken by so many??? I believe the earth is old. I accept i may be wrong. I do not see it as a test of fellowship or a deal breaker. I have read the apologetics on both sides. A point that YEC (young earth creationists) make i find persuasive is the numbering of each of the 6 days of creation in Genesis. Also how yom is used in all the places in the Old Covenant. If yom does mean *extended period of time* then is the 7th day, which was Sabbath rest, endlessly ongoing??? When do we get back to work?? I think there are ways to handle this and to interpret Genesis in a non-loteral way I am just saying I cede the point to those who make it. 1 Corinthians 13 the love chapter in Scripture, would seem to uphold Bells thesis that love wins. If love keeps no record of wrongs and never fails how then do we end up with a hell consisting of eternal conscious torment??? By a God who created us knowing it would happen??? Does that not make God into a more cruel sadist than hitler,stalin.pol pot all combined??? Of course I say an emphatic NO!!!!! But, the question lingers. A question I have, that just resides in a deep place inside, unspoken, is why does it have to take so long for love to win?? Why have so many atrocities had to happen??? People suffering in untold ways because an initial act of sin occurred. The deeper issue for me has always been, what awaits me??? I mean this in the sense I have gotten through life relatively unscathed. I am dealing with a heart condition which I guess qualifies as a form of suffering. But, will i experience even more so once I die because i didn't experience it like so many have, and lived in fear of it?? Neurotic I admit, but this has been how my consciousness functions to handle these type of issues. Anyone find a commonality at all??

Persevere

2011-03-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well hello blog haven't been here posting in quite some time. You still look ok, not too many cobwebs lol. Hopefully I will have much to say and post more often. Big themes definitely running through my head. Life Death Faith Fear Grace Love Justice Such fluff i know. Rob Bell has ignited a maelstrom amongst just about everywhere with his book Love Wins. Interesting to me that many say CS Lewis dealt with the same themes and theological issues as Rob. I wonder if John Piper would tweet Farewell CS!!! Hmmm seriously???? Anyone who has read this blog at all knows fear is a shadowy presence ever since I began writing. That will continue to be so as i seek to deal with it and other aspects of life more fully. Life definitely is a paradox in so many ways. God Himself seems to be as well. He declares He is not far from anyone yet He becomes very elusive and seemingly absent so often when we cry out in our angst and pain, although of course He is right there holding us and all His creation together. Evolving In Monkeytown. It has been reviewed numerous times since its release and I can only say I give it 5 stars or thumbs up or whatever you like!!! Rachel Held Evans is a seriously gifted writer and I strongly encourage EVERYONE to get and read her book it will rattle your cage in a good way. Truth is a Person and relational as opposed to some absolute standard or position. Notice Jesus said I AM the Truth Way and Life. He did not say, this is the absolute truth. Rachel does an excellent job slicing and dicing our tendency to relegate faith and life to certaintyand being right. I found alot of what she wrote about spoke to scattered thoughts I have had swirling around my own head and that was a very cool thing to discover in reading her book. I am a hopeful universalist. I hope everyone ends up together in Gods Big Tent, whether that be Heaven or whatever He wants it to be called. I hope whatever hell is that it ultimately serves as a refining fire as opposed to a burning source of eternal torment and whoever goes there ultimately finds their way to God. Why would Jesus leave eternity and become the lowest human and suffer and die for any who He knew would not benefit from His actions??? Why would He do so also for a certain *elect* who just had cosmic dice save them while most all of the rest of humanity were headed for hell??? Just sayin Hope those who have stopped by here in the past make a return visit and totally welcome all new passersby to peek in and comment. Love and Grace will win!!!

I Wonder....

2011-01-13T18:59:00.000-08:00

Been awhile since posting. Just struggle to know what i want to write for awhile. Lots of material floating inside the cranium though.

I wonder if the whole Creation story is literal or figurative and why such lines in the sand are drawn by believers to determine who is a *real christian* based on which view they accept??

I wonder why there are so many atheists who staunchly assert God is non-existent???

I wonder why a lot of christians have deconverted to being nonbelievers and claim it has given them more peace than being a believer ever did??

I wonder if homosexuality is cut and dried as it often appears to be in the Bible??? Why such condemantion of something if it is in a persons genetic makeup to be so??

I wonder why so many things happen that seem to be random and forced when choice and freedom are to be the underlying structure of life???

i wonder why when God is love that we have had such a hard time accepting it and identifying with Him as such??? Love is the foundation of everything, why is it so difficult to simply live out??

i wonder why any who claim love and accepting God are not hard to live out would make such claims and if they would give the answer to the rest of us??

Hopefully you who stop by and read will offer thoughts on these wonderings or add some of your own. Thanks for any who do stop by.

BackTrack

2010-12-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

Mulligans are great things in croquet aren't they?? A do-over. Wish lots of times life gave me mulligans for so many different things. God does allow us to backtrack and do-over in a sense by always being there, no matter how many times we slip and fall- and those times are many. My friend Karen made a great comment on my last post, and made me think. God is there, always, yet we choose fear. I say we because I'm sure alot of us struggle with fear, i definitely do. O am not sure of an answer as to why I choose fear. A lot of times it seems more that fear has chosen me. By this i mean i don't go around wanting to be afraid or have an overall sense of anxiety and foreboding. But my imagination and mind tend to lay that out there as what my bodily response should be. God is there, He has control, He has made everything ok.....but, pain,suffering,calamity and negative things happen and they could happen at any moment.Sometimes I can recognize that and be at peace with it. A lot of times i recognize it and feel like i want to jump out of my skin and just run run run .

I think life experience and the way we are wired physiologically as well as the environment we grow up in all play a part in this.Knowing all this doesn't just remove the tendency to fear though. Feeling trapped by the past also is a struggle. I have this compulsion to tell myself that I have always known better and yet still made choices that were sinful,dumb,selfish or what have you. I pound myself internally for doing this, of course no relief comes from that. God thankfully helps me to let His forgiveness, love and grace shine through and that self-abasement ceases for a time. Without grace though it comes back with a vengeance and does not relent.

I have had an ongoing conversation with a friend about whether or not repentance is required for forgiveness??? For instance, if someone killed my mom and did not repent, could I forgive them?? My friend says no. To me though, i can, and hopefully my forgiving the person could lead them to repent because they experienced something so radical and freeing. Repentance is a turning around, an about face. It is turning from my own way and turning to Gods way. We need continual repentance though don't we??? Do confession and repentance go together??? Aren't some behaviors and attitudes so ingrained in us, even as Christ-followers, that we commit them over and over and over??? Repentance on the grand scale of surrendering our lives to Christ does not mean we never sin again once this is done......or else I don't think anyone is saved. LOL Just saying.... we all continually fall short.

I have lil moments here and there where God helps me to let go of the fear and trust He will take care of me, even in the worst moments. Because of my heart condition i sometimes have moments where I get scared i'm having a heart attack or something. God somehow helps me get past those times, and realize He has me in His arms, and He will even when my heart does stop, and when i do die. He has me even when i struggle to accept and trust He has me. That is what allows me to write as i do. Hope to hear from anyone as always.

Raw

2010-11-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

That's how i want to express myself raw open baring all. I can see why many take anti-anxiety drugs with all the stress life brings. I know I continually feel as though I'm in a labrynth and paradox all at once. The story is so simple and so easy to follow: God created, man chose to disobey, God gives law which man cannot keep,God becomes flesh and dies to reconcile us back to Himself because His character and nature are Love.

Problem is all kinds of distortion happen to create roadblocks and deadends. I have had so many thoughts swirling in my head, now that I am writing they seem to fragment and float away grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. The whole notion of sin repentance and restoration have been running through my mind for awhile. Sin is so much more than simply doing wrong acts. It is attitude,resistance,rebellion. It permeates our very core even when we seek to achieve our highest ability. Atheists pay no mind to this because they don't believe God exists. Thus, no sin to worry about. They do accept the golden rule in regards to morality in most cases i think though. Do they have hidden aching deep in their inmost being wondering if God truly is real and all He claims to be???

I have written about my fears,my struggles,my weaknesses and such on here because I wanted to voice them out loud and also be an encourager to others who experience alot of the same things. Sometimes I feel I let all of it hide God though. God is good all the time, all the time God is good. Why o why have all this fear then?? Why have this endless wrestling match with myself over living in faith and obedience?? God is always here, no matter what i feel or think. But when i can't seem to feel Him or my thinking loses sight of Him, makes it seem as though He has vacated. Is it unbelief if you still hold onto the tiniest of hope even in the midst of feeling terrified and weak??

This may be a lil disjointed because i am scattered a bit right now. God is love but that does not remove pain,suffering and consequences from happening, at any time. He understands a struggle to seek His holiness and righteousness doesn't He?? I ask rhetorically for I do believe He does.

I have a friend who believes there is no forgiveness without repentance. Is this correct??? I know we need a repentance to accept Christ and His salvation He gives. But we all continually sin after turning to Him. So, is repentance ongoing??? Surely we commit acts where we dont repent, like outbursts of anger,pride,selfishness not to mention sins of omission. How does al lthat fit??? Is it covered by His grace and love??

Just thoughts flowing in my head. Ultimately God has final say, and that final say is Love. Help us all to know and realize to the uttermost just how amazing You are O God and to bathe in Your Love.

Should Be Simple

2010-10-31T21:29:00.000-07:00

Another one of those seasons of angst it seems. Fear,holiness,obedience,justice,grace.forgiveness.love. These are all the heavy hitter themes within the Bible. I just don't know why I have twisted myself like a pretzel for so long. As i think back, i know my whole perception of reality was affected by my dads death. I have somehow tried to come to grips with it ever since, and i really never have in a certain sense. Faith in God and Jesus as overcoming death and giving eternal life is the answer. But then so many variants end up entering in, especially emotionally. One place it says *the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom* Then in New Covenant it says, *perfect love casteth out fear* The Old Covenant contains many incidents of severe judgment resulting in death and destruction, one just because a man slipped while carrying the ark of the Covenant. The New Covenant also contains some severe judgment and death, like Ananias and Sapphira.

Is hell as we have come to traditionally accept it or is it referring to the valley of Hinnom and was only meant for the jews Jesus was seeking to save since He was sent as He said to the *lost sheep of Israel*??? When Paul said *all Israel would be saved* does that mean Jesus was able to reconcile all of us back to Himself??? Does He love regardless of times of doubt and unbelief??? Does He use that to bring maturity?? How does He feel about a lifetime of bouncing between maturity,immaturity,weak faith,growing faith,wondering just what is going on??

I don't know. I committed my life to following Jesus and seeking to love God, my neighbor and myself, but i have had such a crummy time doing it so often. Do we all feel that way on and off?? How could my atheist roommate have said I was the best example of a christian he knew if i was so crummy at living it out??? Why have I felt so fearful of God all lifelong, so hard to internalize grace and perfect love, although I can realize it and recognize it for others and the genuine reality God wants it to be??? i know alot of this comes from sexual stuggles, having sought pleasure in ways that are not within a marriage relationship, just having sought pleasure as an escape from pain, even after i knew better. i have seen others share on this, but it just feels like an anchor holding me down, that i should never have done it ever to begin with.

i am just kinda rambling here, letting out the pain and struggle inside currently. Do most of us have this same stuff happeining inside that we hold in?? Like i said to title this it should be so simple. Lead me to love God....to love and love and love..

Interpreting

2010-10-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

To interpret or not to interpret not even a question. Interpret we must if we are to be functioning humans. How to interpret, ah now that is a good question to ponder. Just how do we decide our mechanism of making an interpretation?? What prism do we pass our thoughts through as we do our interpreting?? The study of hermeneutics is entirely devoted to this. I think this is an area sorely lacking as far as spending time at a basic level seeking to learn how to understand the intricacies and varying modes involved in doing so.

Always so many questions swirling in my head, lots of different answers as well. lol. Do we interpret literally because its easiest?? Because authority and tradition say to do so?? How do we decide what genre of language is being used in the Bible?? The word yom denotes creation in Genesis. The question is, in Hebraic mindset, did yom mean a 24 hour day or a long period of time?? No matter which interpretation you choose to accept, various associations are at play in helping you reach your conclusion. No wonder predestination/freewill are endlessly debated to no consensus- they both are true alongside each other, like a double helix dna strand. Again, that is an interpretation!!

How does God aid us in interpreting?? What role does the Holy Spirit play?? Does the Holy Spirit lead in a variety of interpretations, as could be deduced by the plethora of denominations existing??? Does God just acquiesce to our humanness in letting us come to many varied interpretations??Are there some that supercede others??

Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. That bumper sticker has been around a long time now. Taking it as true, it lays groundwork for varying impact depending on how we interpret its meaning. The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ. As christians, we are called by God to share this Good News via evangelism. The goal of evanglism is conversion to Jesus Christ. Many christians feel pressure, be it internal or external, to *make converts* the effect of this pressure can lead to turning evangelism into a sales pitch, and you just want to close the sale and get the customer to sign on the dotted line. Is this what Jesus meant by the Great Commission though??? Did he want to have us telling people they better convert asap or they will burn in an eternal hell?? Did He want us to bypass any semblance of establishing relationship at all to just get them to the end result??? Saying the sinners prayer or raising a hand as a sign you want to accept Christ are not in the Bible. Hmmmm, then again neither is the word trinity......ponder that one lol

I hope to write more on thinking about thinking. God gives us a lot more freedom than we want Him to i think as i survey the landscape. Hopefully hear thoughts of any who may stp in and read here.

Reexamine

2010-10-15T14:11:00.000-07:00

Examine is a good word, a good process. We learn when we examine, whatever it is we choose to make the object or subject of our examining. I have come across some things which have led me to reexamine satan and hell. I have posted on this a few times before, but like to repeat as I have read and looked into things a lil more.

Satan = adversary. Actually in the hebrew it is ha satan which is a function and not a proper name. The Bible is filled with many genres of language and uses of words, some definitely NOT meant to be taken literally. Where do we get the notion satan is a supernatural fallen angel??? I see that hand yes yes many will say the Bible of course!!! O really??? Hmmmm let's just see. It is widely held that satan appears in Genesis as possessing the serpent/snake to tempt Adam & Eve. However, satan is never mentioned here. Look at what happens after the fruit is eaten. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, why does the serpent not blame satan??? Many infer satan was in the serpent I think because of that verse about bruising him on the hell and him crushing your head. Was this a prophecy of Jesus victory over satan???

In Luke 20:35,36 it says angels do not die. If we look in the book of Revelation we find where it says the fiery furnace prepared for the devil and his angels will swallow them up. How can this be if angels cannot die??? Devil = slanderer or false accuser, angel= messenger, not neccesarily a heavenly one. God said before He sent the flood in Noahs day that He was sorry he had made man for all he did was evil. Why would He not have been sorry for making satan and the other fallen angels??? If satan were the foulest,most vile and evil being in existence, why would God let him and his cronies have unlimited access to humans and have the power to damn us to hell with him??? Why would God allow satan any kind of power considering what he had become???

The Bible is filled with statements that make satan appear to be a spiritual being roaming around preying on all he can. What if those statements were descriptive and personifications however??? Like in Proverbs 8, declaring Wisdom to be a woman??? If we look closely at Romans we will find Paul saying Adam brought sin into the world, not satan. Sin is our enemy, and Gods enemy and sin is Gods adversary. Adam, which means man, represents all of us and how we all make the same choice as he and Eve to disobey God and choose selfish desires. Jesus came to earth as a human, a baby, born from the womb just like we are. He was fully human and He was tempted in every way as we are- yet WITHOUT sin!!! Jesus destroyed sin and death by His perfect obedient life, His death and resurrection. He gives us His life which overcomes our sinful nature and thus we take on His life in us, maturing day by day as we seek to live by faith and the Holy Spirit.

If there is no supernatural fallen angel then what is hell??? Why is there hell?? Could it be that Jesus referred to the valley of Hinnom and the gehenna fire which the jews knew symbolized Gods judgment upon their apostasy and sin as He had performed in the Old Covenant days??? Could the book of Revelation be talking about the end of the Old Covenant which happened historically in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple???

Many others have written on these matters before. I am just piecing together things as i have been reexaming myself. What do you think?? Make sense??? heresy??? Hope to hear!!!

Thoughts Once More

2010-10-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

We are all like onions aren't we??? Many layers to peel away. No snowflake is exactly the same as any other right??? I would guess then the same is definitely true for us humans. We all do have alot of the same experiences,same likes and dislikes and emotions. But none are exactly the same. It is so strange to me how we all are here living this life we have been born into, and that there can be such a grand canyon like divide between believers and atheists. The exact same experiences can elicit completely opposite reactions in people and their belief about it. Some are driven toward God and others driven away.

I think about this in a very introspective way because of own craziness in some ways. We all face all kinds of twists,turns and challenges in life. Some are far more extreme than others but they happen all the same. Death is linked to life. You can't die unless your alive to begin with. Physical death must have happened before the sin of Adam & Eve right??? No dinosaurs in Eden. So, just what death did they die once Eve ate and gave it to Adam and he ate also??? It says their eyes were opened and they became aware they were naked. So what condition were they in prior to their eyes being opened??? They were not separated from God because He watched over them after removing them from the garden, and He stayed involved in the lives of their descendants as we see in Genesis. Was the story of the Fall really just that??? A story meant by God to portray a deep truth and reality He chose not to make known explicitly???

There is the beginnings of a new interest in discovering if we can know for sure Adam and Eve were actual historical beings or archetypes. After all the name Adam means man. Difficulties being faced by deciding Adam was not a real person in history include: the genealogies,cain and abel,Pauls theological comparison between Adam and Jesus. Some scientists ascertain that we could not have all spawned from a single couple. Just how do we determine what is true?? Or, is it something that ultimately is taken on faith and cannot be proven irrefutably either way???

Hope these thoughts inspire your thoughts :)

Perfect Love

2010-10-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

Feeling the pain of not *getting it* again. Mariams comments make so much sense and reflect my beliefs as well, but my feeling/experience so differ. What keeps me from experiencing Gods perfect love?? Why is there a fear of punishment still??? Is it because all the stories in the OT about God judging people with death??? Is it because I have the calvinist views inside that say I may not be elect and not know it??? A mixture of all kinds of things??

How do I just believe and trust God period??? Sounds so stupid when i write that as i have been living my life since 16 doing that, seeking to best i knew how. This goes back to my question about what is *being human*??? Jesus places the bar at a height impossible for us to ever reach right??? Wasn't that the whole purpose of the Law?? To show us we could not do it??? ever??? So,why are faith & obedience made into a newer version of the law then??? If we don't have enough faith or obedience we may lose our salvation. UGHHHHHH!!!!

Repenting is a change of mind/direction. But, we all commot habitual sins right?? We confess them and repent again and again. We have times where we doubt any of its real right??? Just going crazy inside myself wanting to be free to just trust and have the attitude of gratefulness no matter what, even if God slays me or has me go through various sufferings. I guess its so hard because this has been what i have sought to avoid and made that decision deep deep inside after my dad died. I pray to have this trust and sure enough the old tapes start to roll and my fear thoughts appear- *gonna die*, *gonna suffer real bad* , your heart is gonna stop and your gonna be buried and never escape feel suffocated forever*

These are the thoughts that cause the feelings that torture me. God tells me to trust Him and know these things are not true!!!! i believe Him, so why do I struggle alot with believing Him and acting like these thoughts are true and real?? Help me God to experience trust and give it to You with my entire being!!!

Difficult

2010-10-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

My friend mariam left a comment a lil bit ago which was really good. She quoted one of my favorite books by M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled. His opening line is that life is difficult. I wonder if that truly is one of the most profound as well as most simplistic statements all at once ever made??? How long does it take us to realize life is difficult?? I think babies may even sense it but dont have the ability as yet to express it.

BioLogos Forum is a very cool website seeking to unite faith and science. They derive from the same Source after all- God. They do have quite a bit of controversy though. They declare God used evolution in creation. They declare Adam and Eve were not literal,actual people but metaphorical representatives of our actions as humans to assert our will over Gods. They declare a large part of the stories in Genesis are not meant to be taken literal and this is Gods intention as well. They do this as believers who accept and trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and who do hold to the Bible as Gods Word- just not in a fundamentalist way.

Trusting and obeying God in humility and love. That is the ideal isn't it?? yet, all of us, even the most devout of saints, struggle with ourselves and living this out do we not??? 1 John tells us if we confess our sins we will be forgiven and cleansed. He is talking to believers. So, we have to commit sins in order to be forgiven right??? The nazarenes have a doctrine called the exchanged life where they believe one can actually achieve moral perfection in this life. What were they smoking??? LOL I cannot concieve of anyone doing that, other than Jesus.

So many questions and wonderings which have arisen from things i have read poring through the blogosphere. Scores of people have testified God was silent and unresponsive in a way they wanted Him to be when they were going through times of great distress and pain. Why??? Scripture tells us to cast all our anxieties and troubles upon Him because He cares for us. His peace that passeth understanding is promised if we pray with thanksgiving and supplication. Where is it??? Where is His perfect love??? He doesnt want us to pretend does He?? If we really are struggling and doubting He wants our honest reaction doesnt He???

i ask these things like the Psalmist, sending them out to God. Like mariam shared in her message, God may very well appear and respond the most when we are most desperate and helpless in ourselves. I know i have experienced this before, more than once. It just seems the cloud that covers over head blots those realities out in a large way when i am in the midst of it, and i wonder why I can't just have a magical pain reliever that will just releive all the angst and hurt and questioning and let me relax and sing kumbayah. Its good to be able to lament.

Increase Our Faith

2010-10-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

This was the cry of Jesus disciples after He spoke several parables in a row to them. Right after Jesus said to forgive anyone who sins against them and comes back saying they repent of it. Jesus reply was all is needed is faith the size of a mustard seed, which is the tiniest of seeds. WOW. So, they ask Him to increase their faith, and He tells them a teeny tiny amount is enough?? What is He saying about the amount of faith they had??

I like to ask questions out loud, helps my mind to think through things more clearly. When I read the Bible and take many things at face value, all is hunky-dory. But, thoughts and perceptions happen that make it not so simple. I realize bad things happen. Pain,suffering,disease,hardship,death. I wonder why,and then i wonder why not to me, or when is my turn?? Always seems like a merry-go-round of trying to stay focused and singleminded on seeking God and His kingdom. Job told his wife after he had suffered all the calamity, *shall we accept good from God and not trouble?* This goes along with his proclamation, *yea though He slay me yet will I trust in Him* Those are such powerful words, showing a complete and utter abandonment to God no matter what He does.

This is why fear has been such a strange thing for me. It always casts a lingering shadow no matter where i go. But God also provides an opposite shadow, reminding of His Presence and promise. My mind drives me crazy though when i experience fear or doubt or depression or anxiety. It loves to prod me telling me I once again lacked faith & obedience in God. How do i escape this?? Its my own mind always!!! Then, God supplies times where i can just realize His Presence,Love and Grace. He is with me even in those times where my fear and weaknesses are on a rampage inside me.

Does He actually use those times of fear,doubt and dread to draw me back to seeking Him?? Does He regard me with His same exact love no matter what uneasiness i experience subjectively?? I want so badly lots of times to just have a feeling like on Christmas or Easter, just the excitement and joy of the day!!!! Maybe He wants me to realize He doesnt need me to have that emotional *high* all the time??? Why do I continuously seek after it?? Maybe i confuse seeking Him with seeking His peace???

Keep Wondering

2010-09-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

Sure are a lot of things to think about in this life we live. God-His nature,plan,purpose,presence,absence??? Scripture- inerrant,human error,literal,metaphorical??? Just a few things which come to mind. I am not sure just where i stand in some ways other than I trust God,Jesus and the Holy Spirit have total control of what keeps us and the entire creation in existence.

I wonder about the whole subject of predestination/freewill. Is the Genesis story of Adam,Eve and the serpent literal historical fact?? Did Adam & Eve actually begin the entire procreation of the whole human race??? What made the forbidden fruit desirous to make one wise to Eve?? Where did those thoughts and perceptions originate from??? Why did God say that Adam & eve could have eaten from the tree of life and live forever??? Did physical death, of both humans and animals, occur before Adam & Eve ate the fruit??? Had to be since all the dinosaurs were gone right???

Wonder just what does it mean to be human?? I'm serious here. We are told to not be afraid by Jesus and angels, but how do we manage that??? Is it a certain specific fear we can manage to not have?? Is practicing holiness a constant ongoing learning process, same as repentance??? We have our thoughts wander all over the place during the day and as we seek to fall asleep don't we??? If we were to sell all we had and follow Jesus as He instructed the rich young ruler to do, how would we be able to live??? Surely Jesus never intended us today to take Him literally there right?? Just like the song by chumbawomba we get knocked down, we get up again,nothing gonna keep us down right??? Fear cannot remove fear, like fire cannot extinguish fire, so how does perfect love truly remove all fear and idea of punishment??

Hopefully someone will read this and comment. Interesting things to wonder about though.

Thoughts Continue

2010-09-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

I wonder if people in ancient times drove themselves crazy with thinking the way we can do now??? Solomon sure had a great point that much knowledge equals much pain. He declares that a life lived without God is vanity and chasing after wind. A proverb states that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Just how to interpret that meaning has challenged our minds ever since.

God is Creator and He chose to make reality as He deemed fit. In pondering a utopian world, we would eliminate all disease, all pain,all death and violence. Truly Heaven on earth right?? We may dream of this existence, but truth is we cause our own hell and pain upon ourselves most of the time. Even the best of us, whoever that might be, have moments of insanity in the sense we act in selfish ways or destructive ways. We are not purely rational beings ala Mr Spock. We often let our emotions be our undoing. Of course our emotions also provide our greatest joy and triumph so often as well.

What is the human factor??? The New Testament is filled with descriptions of how believers struggled with conforming their attitudes and actions into that of Christ. Some things never change eh??? If we are brutally honest with ourselves we acknowledge we are saint/sinner almost always at the same time. It is the human condition. How do we get to a point of purer holiness??? How do we actualize Gods perfect love so all fear is removed and we carry out the Greatest Commandment in every interaction we have?? Still working things out in my head so sorry if this comes out discombobulated.

Thoughts

2010-09-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

Are grace and hell compatible??? Is fear really the tool God wants to use to restore relationship with Himself??? Been pondering this for quite sometime. Hell is actually a transliteration i believe. The places in the Bible where hell is used are actually gehenna or hades i believe. Was Jesus speaking about an eternal place of conscious torment when He used gehenna or was He talking about the valley of Hinnom which was a refuse dump where constant fire burned to destroy all that was tossed there???

In 1 Timothy Paul says that it is the kindness of God that leads one to repentance. Why then have so many sermons and teaching focused on Gods wrath,judgment and anger as evangelistic methods??? What is the balance between Gods holiness and discipline and His love and grace??? If satan were truly a fallen angel who tries to lead every person astray and send them to hell wouldn't God sound the alarm a LOT louder,stronger and more frequent to warn us??? I mean satan is hardly mentioned in the OT except for in Job. I don't count lucifer in Isaiah because i believe that is referring to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.

Paul never mentions hell in any of his epistles. NEVER!!!! I think Romans, Hebrews and 1 & 2 Corinthians would have warranted its being told about ya know???

Hope to hear back from any who pass by here their thoughts. Maybe Oprah, Ellen or someone from Dateline NBC or 20/20 will see it and i can get on tv!!! LOL Hey i can dream :D

Man of LaMancha-Spiritual Metaphor

2010-09-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

I acted in a high-school production of this play. Don Quixote was a very interesting character. He was a madman in one sense, seeing windmills as giants, a shaving basin as a magical golden helmet,and a small inn as a castle. However, he also saw a serving girl who was treated as a tramp and even viewed herself that way, as a beautiful fair maiden, pure and innocent, worthy of love and respect. He saw his quest to fight against evil and wrong in all its forms, and to seek to dream the impossible dream and reach the unreachable star.

i watched the movie last night, and was really struck by it. Especially how Don Quixote saw Aldonza. He saw her as a special lady whom he had sought unknowingly all his life. Well, his adult life anyway. She was used to being treated like dirt, used and abused by all the men she encountered. She sings her lifestory to him when she lashes out in outrage and anger because he imagines her so much better than she actually is. She knows how to handle the abuse and deal with it, she has no clue how to handle tenderness, hope and love.

Is this not a vision of how God deals with us??? Of course Aldonza was born in a ditch and left there to die. We were created by God in His Image. However, that image has been marred so deeply and obscured by ourselves over the decades. A highly accepted philosophy declares us to be nothing more than animals bascially, with a bit higher level of functioning. No soul, no dignity,no special purpose. Life is hard then you die. That's it. God and Jesus say hold on there one second. They give the real truth of who we are, of our value and our preciousness. Despite any and all declarations to the contrary, They see us for who we really are and can become. I hope and pray that reality is what gets grounded in us all more and more with no end.

Change

2010-08-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

The only thing constant is change. Paradoxical much?? It is crazy that 2 things that are opposite of each other can both be true. We stand still and move all at once, or do we???Change is hard isn't it??

Sometimes I have small *aha* moments about changes in perspective or thought. I have a vision or inkling of having a different way of viewing and living out something but before i know it, poof it vanishes, leaving me wanting to have it back and stay put. There are things i have in my psyche and personality style that I wish I could just change instantly, and i wonder why it is so difficult. Why do I have the fear and anxiety I have??? Better yet, why do I interpret/react to certain things with fear???

I know seeing certain things that made others afraid influenced me to be also. I don't know why at times feelings just appear inside that are fear-related. I seek to tell myself that God is always present and with me so i need not fear but my thoughts and feelings take on a life of their own. Sometimes they stay dormant but again i can't say why.

As I have sought to win this lifelong battle with fear the struggle takes on different dimensions. I telly myself i am free to be fearless, but then a thought pops in my head saying- *o sure you trying this again?? you know you cant be fearless just let something happen to your heart or brain you will be quaking in fear in no time* And then I pound myself for having that thought happen. Why do these thoughts pop up and vanish over and over??? I think that same thought process has repeated itself since I was a lil more than 8 years old. How insane is that??? The other crushing blow is the thought process that tries to tell me i have not grown much in all these years, am still stuck in much the same way i was then. Of course I have grown and changed in so many ways but when this process grips my mind it blots everything else out.

Ok, so, sound familiar to you dear reader??/ Any of it??? Do share.

Assorted Thoughts

2010-08-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

I had a lil free time at work & wrote some random thoughts that came to mind. Do feelings override thought alot?? What causes us to be irrational or nonrational?? What causes us to be superstitious???

Fear. It comes from awareness of being hurt,punished or made to feel bad in some way. A sense of these things going to happen. What influences our minds to interpret in such a way that fear is the result?? In the OT, we see God wiped out sodom and gomorrah, lots wife was turned into a pillar of salt. Israelites were told to kill entire groups of other ethnic groups. In the NT we see ananias and sapphira killed immediately, pronouncement of judgment to come.Isn't all this enough to make anyone wonder what awaits them upon death??? Will they be judged for the life they lived??? This is where the ultimacy of Jesus work comes into play. Did Jesus atone for ALL sins of everyone for all time??? Did He atone just for those who come to Him in faith???

Adam was said by Paul to have brought sin into the world and death as a result. Because of Adam all die. Jesus as a second Adam is said to bring life and forgiveness of sins to all men. None of us chose to be impugned with sin yet we inherit a sin capacity. Doesn't it make sense Jesus then gives us a life capacity set free from sin???

One other thing. God did not answer all Jesus prayers. He did not let Jesus bypass the cross. He did not make all His followers become one as He and the Father are One. He has not made His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Has He??? Things to ponder.

More Randomness

2010-08-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

How do you relate to an invisible God??? Philip Yancey has a good book dealing with this very question. I really like his humility he displays as such a deep writer, sharing his continuous ups and downs in his own faith journey. We all have different faith personalities, same as we have different basic personalities. Some have umlimited faith, some barely any faith, and so many different places between the 2 poles.

Universalism has been being discussed around the blogosphere. What i see makes me wonder about just who the Bible was written to??? Surely it was written TO those living in that era, and written FOR all of us. Just how much is to be applied to us today though??? I recall Hal Lindseys *late great planet earth* book back in the 70's. Rapture still hasn't happened. just about every generation since Jesus ascended to the Father has had their own doomsday prediction. Amazing how many thought they calculated the day of Jesus return, even though Jesus Himself said only the Father knew when it would happen. Of course, if you believe Jesus came back in 70 AD as He said He would in the Gospels, then you don't worry about being *left behind*

Will everyone be reconciled to God,regardless of their belief or unbelief??? Did Jesus reconcile everyone back to God by His life,death and resurrection??? Does God love all and save all regardless of their choice to ignore or refuse Him?? Just who are the wicked??? Does calling someone a bad name in a harsh way, like fool, make someone go to hell, as Jesus spoke about in Matthew 5??

So many interpretations out there about our eternal destiny. Calvinists, if they hold fast to their presuppositions, end up having the vast majority of everyone who has lived end up in hell. Does that sound like Gods desire??? Even worse is that God ultimately sent them there because He predetermined all who would accept or reject Him. They declare God is God, He can do as He chooses with His creation and He owes us no explanation. True, but does that jibe with the God who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace??? Jesus, who told us to love our enemies, to forgive seventy-times-seven????

Random thoughts & questions. We will always be seeking for the answers.

Thoughts On Thinking

2010-08-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

I took a class in seminary on Theories of History, which was quite interesting. The one class i really wanted to take that wasn't offered though was Theories of Knowledge. Thinking has been a source of immense analysis and study as long as I can imagine. Entire libraries could exist on just this subject alone. Why do we think what we think?? What makes each one us have certain things we think as opposed to others?? Neurobiology,neuropsychology are growing fields of scientific study right now. Nature or nurture??? Which has more effect on our thinking???

The whole notion of fear vs love is rattling around my head, especially after having just read Furious Pursuit which explicitly states Gods love far outweighs fear and the ways evangelism or theology have been done in a fear-based manner. Did Jesus use fear as a motivator??? Did Jesus use fear as a teaching tool??? As I contemplate Scripture and Jesus words and relating to all He came in contact with i really don't see that He did. The whole concept of hell comes into play here though. Nothing has a basis for more fear, to my mind anyway, than the idea of eternal torment in hell. Many sermons and lessons have been preached and taught based on it and with its reality as a basis for turning to God. Jesus spoke of hell when confronting the Pharisees and Jewish leaders. I think His meaning differed than what we have come to traditionally understand hell to mean though. Gehenna is the actual word which is translated as hell. For Jesus hearers, it would represent pain,suffering,judgment. It would have struck a deep nerve to the Jewish leaders, especially as they knew Gods judgments in the OT.

What fuels our thinking of hell??? What causes some to think hell has to be a place of eternal conscious torment and others to think of it as a symbol of Gods judgment for unbelief and disobedience??? Hope to hear all thoughts :)

More Wonderings

2010-08-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

Ever feel like you have a stealth case of MPD??? Like somehow other personalities entered in somehow without you knowing??? I wonder if Adam & Eve actually were the originators of this??? They had idyllic existence with God, each other and animals, then messed it all up due to desire for something else. Don't all of us have hidden desires within us, maybe even ones we don't even acknowledge consciously??

I am reading Tim King and Frank Martins book *Furious Pursuit* right now. main point is that God furiously pursues us and always has us with Him, even when it appears to our senses we must doggedly run after Him and seem to endlessly come up empty. This is a very timely book for me right now. Life definitely zigzagged for me over the years, especially when I had aspired to become either a psychologist or minister, and have basically been a mailclerk since leaving Seminary. It has been a sorespot for me always, and especially because i basically self-sabotaged my own future by dumb actions on my part.

I have shared about my personal failures on here and i always wonder before i do so what reactions will it elicit??? They range across the spectrum but for the most part have been gracious,understanding and encouraging. The book is very challenging in that it talks about fear vs love and love really should always conquer fear, but in actual emotional experience it doesn't seem to for so many. The book is fraught with examples of how people as a whole live daily with fearfulness, especially in how they see God, because the threat of hell looms inside them, as well as the guilt and shame over the awareness their behavior and actions have been filled with less than holiness. So many of us fight to truly accept the truth God loves us no matter what and He always will. How can this be true if a failure on our part to believe and or obey could send us into hell apart from Him forever?? To clarify, i do not hold to this view of hell myself, but it has been taught ever since the Reformation and maybe even a bit before as a doctrinal truth of Scripture. That carries a lot of weight.

I want to write more just wondering aloud. Hoping to recieve comments doing the same. How do i take in the genuine truth God loves me regardless of my inclination to push Him away, to doubt He does as He says He does, to feel Him in an absent way in part due to losing my human father to early death??? How do I integrate my deep emotional hunger and need for Him to touch me in that way and the adult,mature way that just accepts he of course is always there and always will be, no matter what i may do???

Various Thoughts

2010-08-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

Freedom can be scary. Look at the Israelites, once Moses went up to Mt Sinai they began grumbling and worrying about being in the wilderness, despite the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. Some people just do not know how to handle total freedom. This is a reason why parents make boundaries for their kids. On their own, kids just cannot function without doing some risky,dangerous things. Boundaries afford them a safetynet.

Fear. Is there a way to sedate it like novocaine does to nerves??? I could handle fear so much better if I could feel like i was high on demerol lol I know i have no need to let fear be rooted in me with God and Jesus giving the answer to it. Try telling my mind and body though. An example- I went on Colossues, at the time one of the biggest rollercoasters in existence. As we went slowly up the first huge hill, my friend sitting next to me kept saying such comforting things like, *oh no were gonna die ahhhhhh we are gonna crash!!!* Great pal eh??? His purpose was to try and make me laugh honestly though. Once we went down that first drop, i LOVED the ride!!! I could not believe I had been so afraid of rollercoasters!!!! Once the ride was over, i wanted to go again!!! Funny thing though, about 5 years later, same amusement park, same rollercoaster- I was too afraid to ride it!!! WHY??? There was this thought/feeling in me saying no no you might die on the ride no one would be there to help!!!

This is the crux of how i have battled fear. Of course realistically speaking, I could die at anytime,anywhere,any second. I could as i type this. Somehow I manage to deal with that for the most part. But at certain times the thought/feeling overwhelms me and i become paralyzed in a sense, just wanting to get over it already. Trying to talk this over with anyone is hard because I feel like a fool that i have this problem, i feel like they don't want to talk about death, especially in a way that makes it seem imminent in some fashion. I get fixated on the physical feelings of death and the pain it conjures in my imagination and always has. I manage to have lived life even with this thought process as a constant thing. I definitely can sympathize with those who have agoraphobia though.

God and Jesus are greater than death, than pain,than suffering,than any of my fears and worries and crazy imagination.The differing theological notions of God come into play with my fear struggle too. God is Love, why has He not relieved me of this fear battle??? Is there some action I need to perform so He will do so?? Is His love always present with me regardless of my thinking/feeling capacity to comprehend that He is taking care of me??? I need the ability to tell my mind where to get off at times. Its like, oh see my mind is saying this so it has to be so. Of course with certain things i do manage to do that. But my whole fear,feeling rejected,weak,unworthy labrynth, i get caught up in it all. There are times when out of nowhere i will have the words, f*** Jesus run through my mind. AHHHHHHHHHH I dont want those words in my mind!!!! Sometimes it makes them just stay longer. I guess this can just happen at times. When it does though, it hits at my insecurities about how God feels about me and where I am in relation to Him. I have known the truths in Scripture so well for so long. Why have i found it so hard to let them inhabit my emotional core and let me live in place of contentment,peace and joy???

Hope you don't have a headache after reading all this if you have s done so. Welcome to the inside of my crazy mind. Thank you for any and all comments!!

Sufficient

2010-08-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ever feel overwhelmed after reading through all the blogs you have come to discover??? On one side I have read heart-wrenching stories of people who were devoted christians and for varying reasons have deconverted and now are atheist or agnostic. On the other side i have read stories of awe-inspiring faith, hope,courage, love and grace displaying the utter vastness of God. How can such a chasm exist??

I struggle to share myself fully as best i can. I think I tend to lean way heavily on sharing my weak side on this blog, for some reason i think i actually find it easier than to share my strengths. i have chronicled my ongoing battle with fear, it is odd how in some ways i cannot at times place a finger on just where fear and i stand right now. When my dad died when i was 8, I think i felt i was engulfed in quicksand, and i have been living trying to keep from sinking down ever since. My mind long ago was able to grasp the truth of God in Christ reconciling all to Himself. My heart/emotional core, not quite so easily. Suffering and death happen constantly every second of every day, but it affects us more when it happens in an emotionally destructive way. Why did my dad have to get skin cancer??? Why did it ravage him most of his short 30 year life?? Why have I lived to be 49 and been pretty much suffering free save these last few years with heart trouble??

I am just lamenting out loud here,trying to lay out what gets jumbled in my head. Why have so many turned away from God, from Jesus and decided They don't exist??? What is it that lets one person find a deeper reason for faith and another a reason to abandon faith altogether?? I struggle with deep wonderings alot over my fears and doubts. Why do I find insecurity so easy to feel??? Why do I find fear such a huge mammoth reality rather than finding Gods protection to be even larger??? What is the balance between my humanity and the sufficiency His grace provides??

Sufficient. My grace is sufficient for thee, God told the Apostle Paul. Just how does God mean that??? Does He mean no matter how emotionally troubled we are,how much we recieve silence when we call out to Him, how much events of life never become easier, that His grace is sufficient??? How do we measure and get a handle on His sufficiency???

Are you asking these questions?? Are you feeling these things???? Stop in and share anytime.

Rumbling Stumbling Bumbling

2010-07-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

I am a huge sports fan, love ESPN and Chris Bermans catchphrase i used as my post title. I find it quite apropos for how life gets lived, at least in my case. The cliche, *a friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you anyway* certainly applies to God and Jesus, only on a much grander scale. No friend knows everything about you, not humanly possible. God and Jesus know ALL!!!! How many wondered about good ole St Nick when hearing that lyric, *he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!* Kinda makes you wanna put a blindfold on jolly santa doesn't it??? LOL

My struggle with fear has had so many dimensions to it. Part of me has felt like fear has been a punishment which will not leave me because i did not deal with it properly when i was young. Part of me thinks its a test to see how much faith and obedience i have and will I be like Job whatever may come my way. It is a very weird paradox because the times when fear attacks and has me in its grip, ot feels like the most terrifying thing, just the feeling of dread and the thoughts of what possibly could happen. My imagination has actually caused more fear than genuine events themselves. When i had pneumonia, a kidney stone, a stent put in a coronary artery and a cardioversion to jumpstart my heart back to normal rhythm, i handled all pretty well and just sought to give it all to God. When my mind roams free to imagine who knows what, all hell breaks loose fear-wise, just a good word picture to describe how it feels inside.

Reconciling the fact i still fear with accepting God not only knows but embraces me and loves me with no reservation and no impatient silent consternation wanting me to get over it and be 100% filled with faith and obedience. I need to lighten up here lol. When i take a pause and look at my own attempts to perfect myself in some idea/image i have inside of what that look/feels like, I can see i am operating from a more OT law style mindset, as opposed to NT grace one. God disciplines always out of love, i need this reality to fill me to overflowing anytime my obessive/compulsive struggle with fear rears its head. Hope to hear from any on your thoughts about it all.

Thoughts

2010-07-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

I can't imagine what Adam would have done had God never created Eve. Don't you get a lil loopy after lengthy periods of time where all you have for company is you and your own mind??? No wonder schizophrenics hear lots of voices- they want company!!! lol Ok well maybe why so many create invisible friends anyhow if they are lonely.

I wonder how we develop the thought patterns and world-views that we do??? Determinism vs freewill plays out in so many aspects of life doesn't it??? We really do have a tension between the 2 no matter what side of the scale we are on I think, if we are brutally honest with ourselves. Brennan Manning does a maginificent job of depicting our true condition, whether we are believers or not. We are a myriad of paradoxes and question marks. How often have you had a fantastic mountaintop experience you wanted to have last forever but you act in a way that bring you deep down in the valley???

Just what does it mean to be fully human and a totally committed Christ-follower??? Always hear the remarks about *walking the talk* and *being a real christian not a carnal one* Do we not all fail so many times everyday to live out what the bar is set at as far as perfect christian behavior and attitude??? How close do we actually come to loving God with our entire being and loving all our neighbors as ourselves??? Doesn't God have absolute understanding about our all too fragile condition??? I mean after all, David who was the *man after Gods own heart* was an adulterer and a murderer!!! Just thinking about the vastness of His grace, must be a good reason why it is amazing grace!!!!

Share any of your thoughts please :)

Risking

2010-07-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Jason Boyett, author of a book on doubt called, *O Me of Little Faith*, had a great post on his blog recently dealing with the question of honesty and is it really what we want??? I encourage everyone to go to his site and read his post, it is genuinely thought-provoking. For me, the thought had me wondering about my sharing on here and responses i get or may get. You can only present just so much of yourself on a blog. It simply has many limitations due to its very nature. You share what you choose to share, editing and censoring as you go,leaving things out and failing to take into account various nuances which comprise the whole of your being. Sorry folks but no one can get across the entirety of their being on a blog- just can't happen.

I have shared some very personal,painful,embarrassing,uncomfortable things on here about me and my life. I have done so for a multiple amount of reasons. Finding this a place where i can seek to share in a way i have no other place to do so. A way to reach out to likeminded people. A way to reach out to totally different people and gain fresh perspectives. Possibly family and friends may have or will read this and come away with a different idea of me, one which may not be as positive as they had held. I think all those risks are worth it. I know God has used not only my writing here, but so many people and their comments as well as other blogs to touch me and bring about transformation. i am not the same person i was in 2005 when i began this, thank You God, lol. Sometimes its very hard to see my own growth and worth because i focus so harshly on my weaknesses and failures. I wish i could personally hug and thank all the people who have left an imprint on me by their words, even if it was just once.

So, how do you feel about risking??? Worth it?? Do you feel the tug of sharing too much too openly or holding back and not sharing enough??? Love to hear from any and all!!!

Peace & Love

2010-07-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

Seems like the wind is swirling around here there and everywhere lately. So many topics being covered in so many varying ways. Willingness to question presuppositions and beliefs that could bring about unexpected change for those taking on the journey.

Just how does God want us to know Him ?? What does it really mean that God is love??? Jesus is the Rock, He is the True Word of God, and the Bible is a revelation which directs us to Him,but are there ways we turn the Bible into an idol and by doing so actually mask over Jesus as He truly intends for us to know Him??? What are the complete ramifications of the Bible being written by fallible humans, even as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit??? Did God actually use their propensity for error and mistakes of judgment and character to comunicate all He wanted us to know with those very flaws included??? How do we know God is supportive of the canon as we have it?? These are questions i have seen being reexamined with fresh eyes across the blogosphere.

My battle with fear has been experienced by me as a barrier to fully realizing the power of Gods love & peace. Somehow I have had distortions from different things inside myself that link my performance to receiving Gods love & peace, even though I rationally know better. As a friend commented, i may have a form of OCD which has taken a toll on my thought processes and trying to embrace Gods total love of and for me,regardless of my maturity and ability to perform as He calls for. Actually realizing that I fail Him and being ok with that may be key to freedom in getting to a place where fear has no power and I can live in the security of His love and peace. Not comfort or safety, because life is filled with pain,suffering and unknown happenings. But security, knowing fully as it says in His Word--- nothing can separate me from Gods love which is found in Jesus Christ!!!

Difficult

2010-07-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

In reading through the Bible, there are so many times of hardship,struggle and obstacles to overcome. The Apostle Paul himself laid out a very long list of troubles he faced on a daily basis. Why is it then I look for some kind of magical miraculous easy time of it for myself??? There is this idea in my head of a certain standard to be met and I dont know how to articulate it or visualize it in a direct way. I think I have let my whole obsession with fear just overshadow certain overall aspects of life on the whole. I saw a commentary where they said that when angels or Jesus told people to not be afraid or to have no fear, it was more like a *hey chill out relax its ok* kind of statement as opposed to a stonefaced solemn DONT BE AFRAID FOOL type attitude.

I am my own worst enemy by far and it seems regardless how much i read,hear,listen to or whatever else of how to realize this and get past it, it still lingers and hovers like a dark cloud that just won't leave. God definitely gives me moments of clarity and insight which i grasp tightly. There are so many times of where i seem to be spinning round and round not knowing how to stop as far as realizing Him and resting in His love & grace. I definitely know i am not alone in this. I had a wonderful friend I have been co-journeying with on here since 2005 comment how obedience just makes her grind her teeth lately, although she wants to do it with all her being. I feel this with obedience & trust so much. I want to do it as naturally as breathing without even thinking, but so much *junk* gets in the way. My own doubts,questions,fears,wonderings, and whatever else you want to call it just rise up over and over. Does abiding in Jesus allow for all this angst and seeming humanness in it?? Just what did Jesus mean by telling His disciples to abide in Him??? I think there are many interpretations of this as there are of just about everything else He said and did.

Hope to hear how pursuing Him iks going for anyone who cares to share.

More Random

2010-06-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

Why is there such tension and acrimony over a literal 6 day creation or not??? I read Genesis and to me the beginning of the book reads like a story, a tale if you will. So much of the Bible is written in metaphor,allegory,hyperbole and poetry. None of these are literal. I don't get why those who hold to a young earth/literal 6 days creation believe our faith will dissolve if we believe a non-literal creation account????

Does God love all of us??? Did He make everyone of us with a full intent of knowing exactly who we would be and loving us good bad and the ugly?? i ask this because, again, limited atonement declares no God does not love everyone, Christ will not save everyone. There are just so many who are totally depraved and God just shuts the door on them. My teeth clench everytime i say that. I see calvinism in a chess match theologically. Of course the game is rigged before the first piece is moved because everything is predetermined. However checkmate occurs, no matter how many moves it takes, when its supposed to and meant to. Love is freedom is it not??? Where is the freedom in this??? Does grace not trump obedience??? I wish someone with a huge readership would talk about this, get a hot discussion going. Christ said *it is finished* Did that mean He obeyed perfectly in all our places knowing full well we never could although we delude ourselves into thinking at times we reach that place??/

i hope to hear from some. Anyone. lol

Random

2010-06-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

I wonder how God manages to be God?? Just how does He handle everything He does and be Love as He is??I get overwhelmed by all I see happening in the world i just want to curl up in a ball and hide till it passes by, but it never all passes by. What makes some of us so much more fragile than others?? Is it good to be open and honest about your weaknesses and failings in a public way, especially knowing employers, family members and friends my discover what you have shared and become aware of things about you that you wish they hadn't???

I drive myself crazy within my head so much. Interacting with other people is so much easier than within my own self pretty much. I have the awareness that all of us are in the same journey together, pretty much having the same basic needs and desires to love and be loved, be a friend and be friended, and all the other emotional/relational stuff. I dont know why fear has kept such a grip on me deep within, despite years of sharing with others, in therapy,in church, with friends. I feel like that man in the Bible who said I believe, help my unbelief!!! On my bad days i feel like one who wished they had never been born and so useless to God or anyone else. Most of the time i rebut this thinking and realize He and others can be helped by or make good use of my weaknesses in a positive way.

I guess i dont know how to let the freedom and joy of Jesus victory over death just shut out the fear of it, mpst likely because i struggle with fearing i somehow in someway wont experience the victory over it when it happens with Him, and having that fear compounds my already existent fear because I should be steadfast, overcoming in the faith and grace He has given. There is a deep conflict i have inside that I bury because even admitting to it is so painful. Another fear is that in sharing this always on here i cause to happen the very thing i dont want. Driving people away because they dont want to hear an endless broken record anymore.

Do people who publicly always share positive and joyful,hopefilled writing have dark times where God seems or feels so far away??? Do they have times where they feel they just lack for some reason or another?? I know the answer in a way but i guess i wonder if those struggles persist on and off quietly within or do they find God takes them away???

i will just be random for awhile i think

In Pursuit

2010-06-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

Pursuing is the name of this blog. Seeking to pursue Jesus and His call to follow Him as He followed His Father. Many obstacles and diversions happen in this journey. An amazing reality is God is always in hot pursuit of us. Knowing and understanding God is an undertaking that is truly beyond scope. How can we,with finite minds that are prone to self-seeking, possibly hope to even come close to understanding and knowing God in a profound way??? Yet He calls us to that very thing.

I feel stuck on just what to write about lately. Thought sharing my own story and the trials and tribulations would be good, but i don't know. I want to seek to wrap myself and my thoughts all around His love and grace.It just hits me lately how much diversity there is in the way people think about God and Jesus. Alot of dogmatic statements are made very often, making it seem like a very small circle where we all should be finding our way too, if we truly were seeking God. There are verses which point to such a narrow focus. However, there are so many verses that point to an unbelievable acceptance which lacks so often in our dealings with each other, Gods love and grace appear to be insurmountable and will reach even the most hardened of hearts. Sometimes everything becomes a blur and a whirlwind,trying to get my bearings. As always, like to hear any and all comments.

Control- Who Has It

2010-06-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

I love the incredible creativity that permeates the blogland!!! So many minds discussing so many things in original ways. How can this be unless One who is able to create such beings with such abilities exists???

Calvinism has always given me a sense of dread, because it, to my mind, turns God into our enemy. I am sure that this raises the ire of those who hold to it, that is not my intention. I have always seen Gods sovereingty upheld as His highest attribute by calvinism. He can do however He chooses with us because He made us and He is allpowerful and He owes us no explanation for anything He does. This is true on the face of it, but Gods own actions and self-description goes against this. God became one of us in the Person of Jesus Christ, He did not seek or display power, but servanthood,grace and love. Yes, He meted out judgment and justice and lived holiness and righteousness, but His attitude in doing so, was never one of *i am God so i will do as i choose i dont care what you think* He came to save sinners, totally depraved sinners,and the elect fall into that category as well.

I battle fear, and i think the bottom line of it has always been control. A desire for it, a way to have control over the uncontrollable. I seek for it even though it is out of my grasp. I think all of us have this penchant in us, is this not what superstitions are??? We believe the lucky rabbits foot will give us an edge on something?? Speaking in a general way here. I believe that God has ultimate control and as God He better. The trouble is aspects of that control involve things I would rather not experience. Pain,loss,and ultimately death. The scariest times are when I have felt an impending sense of death and that i could do nothing to stop it if it chose to happen. Scarier because I have the added fear of somehow alienating God because I have let myself seek to avoid these things He called me to, as He calls us all to. Hopefully, He breaks through my distortions and faulty thinking and washes me in His love and grace in a felt way.

Holy Almighty God- You and You alone possess ultimate control. Help me to continually trust and obey You no matter how difficult i find it to be and how dark my own limitations may make it look on and off everyday. Thank You for being above all I can ever ask or think and that Yours is the power and the glory forever and ever Amen

Contentment Always

2010-06-13T20:45:00.000-07:00

Paul talks about this, I believe at the end of Philippians. He says he learned the secret of being content in any and every circumstance. Yea riiiggggggggghttttttttttttt!!!! Just how he learned this has always intrigued me. Did he learn it by suffering, the thorn in the flesh God would not remove, no matter how badly Paul asked for Him too??

I wish i could learn and apply the secret. I wish i could get outside my head and do it. I watched some show where jillian michaels worked with a family to get them in better health. The family had a father who died. I found myself emotional just hearing that and watching them. There is a huge hole i have which is because I suppressed emotions and pain and struggles that happen in life because i wanted to be strong, i wanted to appear and to be able to *handle life* and fill the role of the *man of the house*, even though this began when i was 8. My mind has always been gazillion miles ahead of my emotions and will in dealing with life. It has always been hard, especially in my view of myself as a christian, to acknowledge the weaknesses I have had and the hole that has been there from lacking a father or a male role model in any close sense. How do you go back to repair things that were supposed to be taken care of from 8 to 16??? I think maybe my inclination to pursue psychology and spirituality because of these things.

i want to flip that switch like i see in so many bloggers. Where they are able to find the contentment in the midst of stuggles, no matter what they may be. I want to fend off the perfectionism that tells me I cannot ever achieve what i want and need too, and the defeatism that says i have been unable and incapable of reaching a place of contentment, a place of being where God wants me to be. What is that place??? Why do I see others as seeming to know what it is, but i know they have their own struggles and ups and downs too.

A help i have is that my deepest desire is to seek to follow the spark, no matter how small, that Jesus placed inside me. No matter how bad things get and how hopeless or useless or discarded i feel, God and Jesus love me and call me to risk loving too. Hope to hear from anyone relating to all this, however it might be.

Snowball Effect

2010-06-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

A scary thing to decide to post on certain things, especially personal failings and sins which can cause a lot of mixed reaction from people when discussed publicly. Jason Boyett at o me of litle faith has a good post on grace vs judgment and having Ted Haggard actually comment on his blog after discussing him in a post. I mentioned Ted in a previous post as well, would be interesting if he found me too. Balance. Especially when dealing with our own or others sin, is a tricky thing.

I said snowball effect because my struggles began fairly small. Like I siad before, sexual struggles of various kinds are huge within the church. Both men and women struggle and for a wide variety of reasons. Being able to openly discuss or deal with it is still in its infancy. I didn't want to feel afraid of how to handle romantic relating to women!!! What guy would??? I have been smart enough to know certain things do not get exposed outwardly without risks. Celibacy is by default universally viewed as the choice for single believers. Culture,inner desire, hardwiring of our sex drive and media saturation fight this tooth and nail. I never had the thought and desire in my struggle of- * o yes i just want my sexual pleasure no matter what you say God* It is way more involved in rationalizations and conflicting desires for that.

Questions and wonderings within ones self and also from various other sources, be they family,friends,coworkers,strangers and whatnot, all affect you and your thoughts,emotions and will. A catch-22 also is there as a minister. Ministers are just as human and fallible as anyone else, but a certain expectation goes with the territory, just how it is. So, on the inside once you realize you are violating a behavioral code and also a spiritual one, it becomes very sticky on just what to do. The desire to be open and accountable conflicts with the fear of judgment,digrace and rejection by family,friends,church and more. It is easier to accept at the mental level than the personal.

I hope to talk about this more as time goes on in various ways, and hope to get comments from many people with all kinds of perspectives. Please feel free to email me if you would like to speak more privately on anything. I really feel exposed sharing some things on here as i have. Hope to hear feedback from some on any thoughts you have. Peace.

The Hardest Thing

2010-06-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

Restoration. That is how i opened my last post and ended it as well. How does God restore, does He always restore, what is involved as far as people and being restored?? Not easy to talk so openly about my struggles but in doing so hope it is used for a restorative and redemptive purpose.

I must go back to way before this incident occurred. I have talked before about influences upon development, nature and nurture. My paternal grandmother was extremely overprotective and it made a huge impact upon my inner sense of self and confidence, in ways i didn't realize till much older. I was tall,awkward and shy as kid. I had various challenges which i handled well enough. I never learned how to deal with girls. I knew in the basic way and the way of being ablr to talk and flirt and be social around them and with them, but in my deepest self, I had nothing but fear and trepidation of what to do with them. This was exacerbated when at 13 i developed chronic acne and newly moved from new jersey to california. I felt totally self-conscious and was on the recieving end of endless teasing and mocking by many of the other kids. Tv, wrestling and roller derby became my refuge.

I lost the acne by sophomore year, and had some girls even show interest in me, but i had the deep fear that kept me from being able to make anything happen. I was always a very avid reader, and I discovered how to find the sexual scenes in books and would read them anytime my mom went to the mall to shop. i would go read while she shopped. Reading those scenes caused the physilogical reaction inside me, one which i knew rationally but was immature about emotionally. I saw alot of movies as well, and always had the longing to experience romantic expression someday with a girl, but my feeling of rejection and unattractiveness was way too strong within.

I know the statistics which show both men and women battle with aspects of sexuality in huge numbers. Porn,cyber sex,phone sex, massage,prostitution and affairs. These struggles do not just happen in a vaccuum, there are reasons behind this being such an incredible epidemic. I wanted to share this as way to get at the root levels of my own situation. I once posted on this struggle and recieved many encouraging and heartwrenching comments and emails from people who were touched by my sharing and were motivated to share themselves. i hope this will always be the case. Ted Haggard hopefully will be used by God to teach us even more deeply the wonders of forgiveness,grace and love leading to life transformation. I share so God will continue this in me. The hardest thing is talking openly about my fear and struggle with women and how to develop a real romantic relationship. I will post more on this and hope possibly both men and women will comment or email me with any insight or experiences of their own which relate. Cant thank you all enough who comment and just read and send positive vibes while doing so.

Restored

2010-06-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

I find restored to be a multifaceted word. It has so many connotations. Restored to a former state of being. Restored after having been broken or damaged in some way. Furniture,dolls,appliances,cars. These things and so much more can be restored in such a way they appear as brand new. You would never know by looking at them they were once in need of repair. How true is this of people??

I saw Ted Haggard and his wife very briefly on the Joy Behar show. I then went to his website to read about what has been going on with him recently. It was very interesting to read he and his wifes story and how they underwent a journey that had many extra trials in addition to his repentance and seeking counseling and accountability. A lot of assumptions were made about ted and a whirlwind of controversy especially since he was a high profile church leader facing a scandal dealing with sex & drugs.

I hope and pray Ted his wife and family are enjoying a restoration of true fellowship with Jesus and people. His story always hit home personally for me in a way because I had a personal sin involving sex which led me on a journey, one which i still am on . I have talked about this before on here but just felt like revisiting in thinking about restoration. I was in my second year at seminary, seeking a Masters of Divinity in Pastoral Counseling. I really liked my classes and my major professor, although having lived in southern california since 12 years old right near the beach, being in the middle of Illinois with NO mountains or beach of any kind, it was a lil rough lol

Youth Ministry was what i got my BA in at Bible College, though in my senior year I realized that it was not what i was truly cut out to be. Psychology had been my initial choice at je college and i had done really well, even being encouraged by actual psychologists who I took classes from. Math was always my nemesis though and i had such a fear of statistics and math I felt i would not be able to achieve my psych degree and ended up turning to ministry. I decided to see if i could get a youth ministry position while in seminary, as a way to prepare for a future assistant pastor position. I was hired by a small church in Illinois, some really wonderful people in that little congregation. Not much had been happening in the youth group and they hoped i could bring some life to it. I did find that the kids responded to me and a couple of them who never showed up to anything, actually came to a movie i showed!!!

The Sr Pastor wanted me to go to the local jr high and high school and talk to some of the kids there at their lunch and break times. Jr high and the beginning of high school were disastrous years for me and my inner fears of rejection and unattractiveness stirred in me at the thought of this. I felt like all the kids would laugh and ignore me wondering who i thought i was to to come see them at their school. This was not rational thinking i know. I stayed at a house owned by the church on friday through sunday, and my insides just churned more and more thinking about what would happen at doing this. I recalled a number i had seen in my paper on california that was a phone sex number. I rationalized my fears and uneasiness and decided to call the number as a release. Little did o realize how many times i called the number as one call lasted only 2 minutes. It became addicting to get more after being cut off. The phone bill of course showed up at the church, they discovered the nature of the number and i was asked to resign.

Restored. I felt like a total disgrace to God and to the church I had been hired at. Not to mention my seminary, all my professors and friends, my home church and all the people there, my family. This post is longer than i thought so i will be making some more soon. I still ask God this question of being restored. Thank you for reading.

Pause

2010-06-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

Don't you like that feature when playing a video game, watching a video or am mp3, listening to music??? I wish life had a pause button. Pause long enough to correct mistakes and errors and somehow delete them from memory, or at least emotionally anyway. I wonder what it would be like to be like Spock from Star Trek??? He was free from emotion basically, but he seemed very affable and friendly most of the time. He was logical but not arrogant. It is interesting to wonder if he experienced a kind of joy simply from his mind???

I love to read peoples blogs. I often wonder though, what is lying underneath the person??? I choose to share my inner self on here as my primary topic because I think and feel it is a good outlet and lets me put into words things that otherwise just tumble around my brain. Also, to get feedback from anyone who reads and hopefully provide something to someone who may never comment but still were encouraged in some way by reading my words. I do wonder if sometimes it would be good to focus more outwardly as i see so many do. Focus on subjects which affect all of us and which call us to response and reaction. I wonder if the people writing these blogs experience the same angst as i so often do??? Do they struggle at times with whether or not they *get* what life is to be??? Do they have fears,worries,tensions,doubts and other struggles that make them feel like they are in quicksand at times???

Life really is a paradox of simple and complex. Can we pause and live in simple for an extended time??? Hope to hear any thoughts anyone has on how we all are.

Fighting with Reality- Being Human

2010-05-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

Just what does it mean to be human??? Fully,completely human?? Jesus lived the most complete human life of anyone, and He was partly divine. He never lost touch with His humanity though. He took time to be alone when His batteries were low. He enjoyed socializing with His friends as well as people He came across in the course of life. I get caught up in some idea of what i am supposed to be as His follower and seeking to imitate Him and reflect Him but I lose sight of the acceptance aspects which He gives to us as we are simply human.

I beat myself up internally all the time for my perceived lack of mental toughness and invincible courage and boldness to take on any and all challenges undaunted by any fear or worry. I fail to note the small instances where in my own way I did take steps of courage and boldness, maybe not even close to my inflated magical superhero vision of them, but they still happened. I don't expect or ask anyone else to carry out this perfectionistic vision i have in my head so why do i hang onto it for myself??

God made us, He knows each one of us far better than we could ever imagine. He knows my whole mixture of faith/fear/struggle/desire and all else inside me. I pray He helps me to deal with my fear as genuinely as i can,acknowledging my faults and weaknesses with it. I have lil moments of deliverance and peace and many moments of dread and anguish. I pray he will help me to accept myself more fully and to accept that pain,suffering and certain other unwanted experiences just are part of life. God Himself has had them so how can i in all honesty expect to get a pass when He doesn't??? The acceptance of no pain no gain really is a help when its implemented.

Fighting with Reality- More

2010-05-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

I think psychosis is a way to find rest from reality for many i really do. My mind just gets so overloaded so much and it just keeps going and going like the energizer bunny. I keep butting heads within my mind with varying thoughts. Why am i not where I think i should be and why do I have a place where i think i should be instead of just accepting what is???

Jesus told His disciples as well as the crowds following Him to come to Him as a little child. He did not elaborate much on this, so we have to analyze and interpret what He meant. Endless analysis and interpreting is what makes my mind spin and spin. Where is the Spirit to grab hold of me and just make me know- THIS IS IT!!!! So much history of so many interpretations.

What is Gods expectation?? David, the man who *is a man after Gods own heart* committed adultery and murder. Was his life perfectly holy and obedient after he repented of these sins?? What is Gods expectation of repentance for us??? Surely he knows that most all of us have sins which we repeat over and over again, maybe they are small and not so bad in the large picture, but they are sins nonetheless. Repentance therefore like confession is ongoing throughout life right???

This is my dilemma where I fight reality right now. I seek to surrender myself to God as best I can, seek to pursue Him and His ways, His Word, and at the sametime have all these other desires which go against the ones He lays out. Is this true for all of us as just what happens in life?? Is there a time and place where holy obedience and faith just rules in the heart and mind and lets the believer live life in peaceful rest??? What is the reality supposed to be???

Hopefully I am saying some similar themes in different ways in these posts. The point is struggling with personal experience and Gods Word and His promises and what to do when they are not in alignment. Are you having a similar struggle or have you found a nirvana??

Fighting with Reality

2010-05-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

I love reading blogs. Also seeing titles of blogs on the blogroll of people i follow, I find so many fantastic writings there. My blog buddy Misti Pearl has John Eldredge on her blogroll. He had a post talking about how we struggle with accepting reality, hence the title of this post. Tiffany Stuart has a post talking about being all in with God,whatever He asks. These 2 themes fit right in with where i am at currently, quite a coincidence eh??

These 2 themes, accepting reality and being all in, really hit me as deep to my core as anything. I talk so much about my battle with fear, and specifically my fear of death, which on the flip side is also fear of life. it is often like I have created my own torture device within my mind where I seek to turn to God and seek His answer to my fear. But, as i do so, the fear begins to act like whatever torture method you can imagine and the more I seek to give Him my fear and trust Him with it, the more the fear becomes unbearable. It is a very strange thing where in order to keep the fear at bay i cannot seek to commit it to God or it will activate. Is that a lil insane???

My friend Miriam in a recent comment spoke of how we can turn God into just one more fear and that was very eye-opening. God is love, perfect love. His perfect love is supposed to cast out fear. My twisted logic i developed awhile ago is that, since I still felt fear i somehow missed on His perfect love, maybe I am not deserving of it and so it is withheld. Of course, none of us are deserving, that is why it is grace and a gift, and displays the majesty of God as being love. I am trying to piece together my whole fear puzzle so I can more fully surrender it to Him and share in a way that may touch anyone reading.

Paul says in Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. NOTHING!!!! I am an INFJ personality type. Feelings weigh heavily on my thinking,reacting,choosing. Feelings are not always as i want them to be. Feelings cannot and do not separate me from the love of God. This is the kernel of truth i want to focus upon and burn into my soul so strongly anytime fear rears its ugly head. No matter how hard fear strikes at me, in whatever way it does so, I am secure in Gods love by Jesus Christ. For some reason, I need that reality and truth to hit me in a way other than my mental apprehension. I thank God He is always helping me to learn and grow no matter how much I struggle,doubt or sink in my own quicksand.

Does this resound with you at all??? I hope you come across words and thoughts that hit home with you day by day.

Balance

2010-05-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

Balance is tough to come by in many ways, for me anyway. Just like moderation ya know. All things in moderation. Tough to remember and do when you are just desiring a lil more icecream, a few more cookies, a lil bit more pop,and well yes food is a toughie there lol. I so very much want balance in my mind and my way i treat myself and then live out what and who i am. I know probably if anyone went back to 2005 and scanned this blog over the years it would tilt and lean wayyyyyyyyyyyyy in one direction -the struggle,pain,aching and hard side. I guess i tend to write on those themes so much because as i have said before, I dont share them really except for inside my own mind and to God. Sometimes when talking to a close friend or a counselor, but that is always censored to some extent.

I was googling about emotional immaturity and found some sites that spoke to me. One said that children who experience a major trauma, like losing a parent, can become stunted developmentally and emotiuonally at that age. It made me think, because i was 8 when my father died. Do i really have a lot of internal emotional makeup of an 8 year old??? The whole being stuck on fear of death made me think in ways possibly I could. As I have shared numerous amounts of time on here, fear of death has been a constant shadow as long as i can recall. It is not a rational fear because i believe in God and Jesus, yet a whole slew of things gets all jumbled in me concerning it all. I have had some good meditative times at night lately. God seems to help my mind function better at night in this way. Accepting the reality of death and how Jesus makes it a nonissue as far as fear goes is my focus. That all goes awry though when my mind goes off on ideas about failing to have enough faith/obedience or failing to have been a good enough servant and many other things. i want to be like Solomon in Ecclesiastes where he speaks of a time for everything. Let God be God and not chase nor strive after the wind. Balance.

Persevere

2010-04-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

I love and hate that word. I love it when I can imagine and envision it happening when dealing with tough tasks and issues in life. I hate it when I am in a mood or place where i just don't want to persevere. I am so glad Jesus is who He is and did what He did. I cannot begin to fathom a world without Jesus in the sense that He was the only One of His kind, being God/man. Only He overcame death, sin and all the failings of humans. He did it and did it with a fervency and gusto that could only exist within such a One as He.

Round and round i go with fear and the existential results of it. The heat has been turned up even more it feels like, most likely due to seeking Him in prayer so much, as well as having others praying for me and trying to come at it from all angles. I have not always had such a tug of war with fear. I think my inactivity in many ways has caused it to get rougher over last several years. I have had many times where I did things in spite of or even with the fear. Of course I felt like a pretzel inside but hey I still did it!!! I wish I could stop having that thought/feeling of death about to happen any second that lingers inside. Thinking about it will not prevent it. If it were to happen, I will soon experience what God has in store for me. Why have i had this disparity between what i believe and know about the Bible and about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and this sense of foreboding because i have not performed as my mind and conscience tells me i should have??? Don't we all fall short, far short of what we estimate we should be??? Do many of you have this battle between what you believe to be true and what you feel is true in a nonrational way?? I just want to find a way to live with fear in a new way and not let my own self-doubt block me from doing so. Thoughts???

More Thoughts On All of It

2010-04-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

All of our minds work very intricately don't they?? Even when we sleep our minds work via dreams or nightmares. Sometimes it is a very strong wish to want my mind to just turn off for a few hours. So many different thoughts swirling and twirling within my mind. Why do I have such a tough time with fear??? Why have i not been able to shake it?? Why do I have the inner feelings of unworthiness and inability?? Death is called our greatest enemy and it is the one thing we do not have a frame of reference for since no one has come back from it to share what its like other than Jesus. Jesus resurrection overcame death, there is no resurrection without death happening first. Problem- is there something required in order to assure one is under the cover of Jesus??? This is the million dollar question.

The predestination/freewill debate will probably never cease, like the song that never ends, for it goes on and on my friends. Some argue Jesus came to save only the elect. Others argue Jesus came to save all. Hmmm, I believe the one passage in Romans says, *while we were yet sinners Christ died for us* John 3:16 says God loved the world, meaning His creation inhabiting it. God is love, God says in His Word that mercy triumphs over justice. Grace flies in the face of justice because it gives what we dont deserve and cannot earn. Justice gives us what we deserve. I would say that puts a limited atonement idea to the side, but that is just my view.

We are called to confess our sins, to repent and to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior. I have not yet met anyone who has lived sinlessly after conversion. Not one. Those who say Jesus only will save the elect will make sure that they have the kind of faith and life that shows plain and clear they belong to God and are truly His. Doesn't 1 John say if we claim to have no sin we lie and the truth is not in us??? Just what life level are these *elect* to have met??? How do they know they have met it since they will have committed some sin here and there???

I just lay all this out there for my own laying my thoughts in the open and getting feedback from anyone who reads them.Like a sweet friend wrote in my comments on my last post. We have a bad wolf and a good wolf inside us, the one who wins is the one who gets fed more. I struggle to feed the good wolf more. Sometimes i feel like i cant help from feeding the bad wolf.God always seems to find a way to gently whisper He is always there,even when i fail and give in to the bad wolf time and time again. I hope that is His whisper.

Because.....Therefore

2010-04-24T15:26:00.001-07:00

Just a way here to express some roots underlying the fear struggle. I am always so glad when i see others discussing themselves personally on their blog. it is hard at times to decide what is good to share and may minister to someone and what is just a bit tmi. The attitude and motive behind the sharing hopefully comes through though, especially to any who are moved by something that hits home for them, I guess the Holy Spirit is quite capable of doing that eh??

As I think about my history of having fear, I came up with these 2 words to help articulate it. Because so many places the Bible says not to be afraid, and i still am afraid, therefore I fail God and feel unworthy. Because in the parable of the talents the one who buried his talent is chastised and anything he had was taken away from him, and because I think in some ways i have buried my talents due to fear or lack of confidence, therefore i too will have whatever i do have taken away. Because Jesus says He is the vine and we are the branches and we must abide in Him to bear fruit, and I so often fail to abide in Him, therefore I do not bear fruit and am unworthy. Because it says let him who doubts expect to recieve nothing from the Lord, and i have had those times of doubt and such, i am to expect nothing from the Lord.

There are other examples but i think I spelled out the diagram of what happens in my mind,heart and soul. Again, I lay all this out as a way to express my fear struggle, not to say this is what i am always experiencing 24/7. Because i do believe God is real, Jesus is Lord and Savior and He is in full control i am able to even post on this blog and seek to deal with my struggles. He always provides hope even in the darkest moments. I just want to lay out all my deepest pain so i can share and both give comfort and be comforted by any who I interact with on here. God has been good since my rough night the other night, as He always is. I just do go through a lot of times where I am overwhelmed by the fear,shame and pain inside and when i am so, it is so tough to turn and rejoice in Him, although often i still try.

So, do you have some because....therefore issues in life?? Does what i share hit home or do you think I miss the boat somehow?? All comments desired, except spam.

Raw

2010-04-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

That is how I felt last night after posting and thinking about some other posts i had read. Just bare,exposed,raw. I had one of those times where the wailing just spontaneously happened and wouldnt stop. I sang kumbayah as i wept, very softly and i still desire Him to come by here,even though He actually always is. Fear is a tyrant and it doesnt play fair, whatever that is. Mix in some anger,frustration and helplessness with a lil hopelessness sprinkled in and ugh not a tea party thats for sure.

What really sucks about all this is that I know and believe He is who He says He is and He loves as He says He loves, but i have found ways to doubt,resist,rebel and who knows what else with it, but at the same time want to just cling to Him and rest and follow Him with all i got. Yet,even as i write this, I know the battle for control is deep inside raging. His ways are not easy, they are not painless. He not only lets death happen, He actually bids us to come and die!!! Jesus was not just going through the motions when He prayed if possible for the Father to let Him have a different cup, but He ultimately trusted and accepted the cup the Father gave Him.

As I cried and prayed and sang to Him last night, the fears all bounced around in my mind. Maybe my heart would be affected by all this emotion, maybe i would stop breathing or have a brain hemorrhage. How would I respond to actually be in a process of dying??? How was God seeing me as i sought to still turn to Him and seek His help even as I was shaken by my inner pain and hurt??? Is this a personality thing that some are more prone to experience than others?? I was able to eventually sleep and go to work today and function as normal. I dont want to have this fear/self-centeredness thing always going on but i dont know how to just let it go. Raw. Still feel very raw.

Do you experience this inwardly to some degree?? Do you find it easy to just rejoice in the Lord always and be fear-free???

Faith,Fear,Trust Etc

2010-04-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

One of my fave bloggers Rachel Held Evans had a post today that hits home very deeply with me. Theology and Fear. Rachel is a wonderful word warrior and also blends in revelations of herself as well as bits of humor,wisdom and challenge to all her readers. As I read her post and the subsequent comments she received, it got me thinking again about my mishmash of the issues mentioned in my post title. Fear has seemed to be my biggest obstacle as long as i can remember, but it wasn't always so. It is true my dad's death when I was 8 played a major role in my struggle with fear no doubt. But I think actually the heaviness of fear didn't happen more until after I made my acceptance of Christ, began reading the Bible earnestly and took in that we were not to be afraid. Hmmmm.....

Sometimes I think freewill is not all its cracked up to be. I would like God to give me a magic potion or wand so I could instantly remove fear or doubt or anger or anything i didn't want to experience. I imagine being able to have a condition where I could not resist or rebel against God, where I could not have temptations and not have to make choices. Ah life would be so much easier.... well, sometimes it can seem that way.

I love God. I want to trust Him implicitly. I want to take risks. i want to love as He loves and give grace as He does. I also have times where I dont trust Him. I dont want to take risks. I want to find a place to hide and just let all the chaos that is life go by and leave a calmness in its wake. I want to take the reins and tell God NO dont let people die or suffer. Dont let natural disasters happen. Dont let life hurt!!!! I get so caught inside my own head so much. I developed that tendency as a protective device in childhood. It served a purpose. In adulthood, not so much. Amazing to me sometimes how i made it 48 years on this earth and how I have been able to accomplish some of what i have.

Little by little, day by day, help me to seek to trust You more, live by faith, surrender fear and grow in love and grace. Thank You God.

His Power In Our Weakness

2010-04-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

I laid out my inner self pretty openly in my last post. I guess I feel this is a safe vehicle with which to do so in ways I woudn't for many reasons, just like many of you. Miriam, who is a beautiful soul and has such keen insights to share, made a comment reminding me of the Apostle Paul and his ongoing struggle with himself and being caught in the vortex of this fallen world. Paul said very boldly that he did the evil he didnt want to do, and didnt do the good he wanted to do. His words are written in present tense so He indicates it is an ongoing dilemma. I feel in pretty good company if what i experience daily in myself is the same for the most part as the Apostle Paul!!!! As well as the rest of us.

I struggle with the way to interpret certain verses and match them up with the collective whole of the entire Scripture. Be holy as He is holy. He who loves Me obeys Me and keeps My commandments. Whatever is not from faith is sin. Taken individually, these verses seem to present a very strict standard that I fall far short of and I dont see most people i know meeting it either. Of course, many other verses are there talking of His love,mercy,forgiveness as well as His justice,judgment,discipline and wrath. Wesley taught of the exchanged life where we can actually become virtually sinless this side of eternity. HA!!!! I really wonder what world Wesley lived in to imagine such a thing possible??? The calvinists teach God sent Jesus to save the *elect* whoever they may be. The rest of us well, see ya wouldnt want to be ya we end up in hell. UGH. I said over at rachel held evans blog on the topic of calvinism that it makes the good news bad news and heres why. Calvinist theology makes Jesus more a hitman than a Savior. Sorry for such a strong statement but that is how i see it. God sends Him to ultimately save a chosen few and He does it, nothing can change things for those not *elect* because all has been predetermined.

The *elect* are those who are righteous and holy, made perfect in Christ. Hmmm, what did i just say earlier about the Apostle Paul?? Seems he struggled with sin and failing to meet Gods standard. I wonder if he was one of the *elect*???

To any who are calvinists, i do not mean to offend, i just have real trouble with the underpinnings of the theology and use some drastic examples to make a point. I believe hyperbole was used a wee bit in the Bible. LOL What do you think???

Help God Help

2010-04-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to steal the publicans plea in Scripture of help me God a sinner, nor the man who said i believe help my unbelief. My title is including those 2 elements. I hear and read so many conflicting experiences people have with God. Some find Him responding very clearly and directly in thoughts or feelings they have. Some find Him silent nonstop until some event happens where they just know its Him. Some are very emotional, some are very analytical,some let God lead, others take action and believe He is with them as they take action.

I dont know. I wish I could get out of my head so much of the time. I want to just live in the present, trusting and loving and obeying and not being tormented by the *inner judge* who whispers the junk that just eats at my soul. *you cant be like Job and praise Him yea though He slay you, you know your just scared to death of death* *you have let fear,anxiety passiveness just freeze you almost your whole life, and you wont stop now* *you dont know how to live the way Jesus seeks for you to,why are you even trying?* These are samples of the garbage inhabiting my thoughts like a broken record. I guess the amazing thing is how God has let me experience so many things in life despite all this going on inside all the time.

I think what bugs me also is wondering if i am experiencing what alot of other people experience or not??? I know so many people here in blogland open up with brutal openness, but the preaching,teaching I see and hear always seems to keep the bar raised up to a level I aspire to in my mind and heart but that i fall far short of in actual reality of living life. Not to mention the whole conundrum of whether God actually will save all or will a great many be forever banned from Him eternally at some point??? I believe God is love as He Himself says, but He is also Holy, Just,Righteous and judges. He has wrath, which He has shown in His Word.Did Jesus fulfill that wrath forever by His sacrifice for all of us??? Just free-floating thoughts. Hope to hear from anyone who chooses to comment.

Fair or Grace?

2010-04-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes reading all around the blogosphere makes my head spin lol Sure reminds me what a huge world we exist in and so many points of view, even within the subgroups of those who allie themselves together. The title of my post is from the neurons and protons zooming within my myelin sheath. Do fairness and grace go together or are they inconsolable opposites???

Jesus surely wasn't fair was He?? Guess it depends how you look at Him. He healed huge multitudes who sought after Him once His miracles became known. He didn't heal everyone. He gave special treatment to a few. He spoke parables of God the Fathers nature like the vineyard workers. No fairness there, but definite grace. Why is it we want things to be fair so often then??? Do we have a tough time really internalizing grace in ourselves??

A larger question I have been contemplating is how does God determine the life we all live??? I mean such as what period of history we are born in, what location,what family,what genetic makeup we have??? How does He decide the mental and emotional capabilities of everyone??? How does He allot for our measure of faith and unbelief??? Our ability to overcome our sinful tendencies and our inability to??? Deep stuff here, definitely needing more thought down the road. Any of these questions strike you at all??? Any that you just dont even think about or any that seize you and have you thinking an aha moment type response??? Love to hear all responses.

Love Reign

2010-04-02T22:59:00.000-07:00

Good Friday Isn't that a misnomer??? Paradoxical actually because the worst most horrific death ever experienced, that of Jesus, became the most glorious,transcendent overcoming death which actually gave way to Life. Many different things swirling through my mind. Why has it been so hard to just accept the victory of resurrection life over death for me??? Why have i not been able to let perfect love cast out all fear & just live nonstop,unceasingly in the love reign of God thru Jesus?? Why is it so hard for all of us too??? We can be filled with thoughts,desires, longings and whatever adjective you choose for connection to and with God, but so easily life carries us along and distracts us with all the different things with which we have to do. Just venting my own inner frustration. I want to live His love reign, fully and actively. But, I find ways to resist and hide and so many more things that make it hard to do that. I pound my head inside wondering why this is, but isn't this the bane of living as Paul said in Romans??? We fight inside ourselves and Jesus is the only overcomer of it???

Rejoice in resurrection sunday!!! Do you experience this battle though in ways i have described?? Does God and Jesus seem so close and so far both at once??

Marco Polo

2010-03-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

I came across an article entitled Hide & Seek God which was dealing with how God can appear to be silent so much of the time and even be hidden so to speak. I like the idea of marco polo with God as well. You all must have played the game in a pool at some point right??? Whoever is *it* calls out marco and everyone else calls back polo so the *it* can try to tag them and make them *it* Of course the ones responding with polo try to change their voices or throw them to confuse the *it* A fun game to be sure. i found a site called www.questioningfaith.com via ivps website and it has a very cool feature where people can ask questions or share stories of various faith struggles and issues, and someone gives responses, personal responses. I definitely related to alot of the posts left by the questioners.

God may be silent to us at times, not give us a direct line to Himself in a way we hope or expect. But just because He does not respond the way we want or wish or think we need, does not mean He is not there and He has abandoned us. Thoughts and feelings are tricky things. As humans we can be quite adept at the art of self-deception,denial and forgetfulness. So easy when things go awry and we feel pain to turn focus inward and forget the ways God provided when all was hunkydory. This is true for me anyway. I think He has really given so many answers to my constant facing my fear of death and how to overcome it. I just have let my own self-preservation take over and blind me to His answers. Accepting my limitations and faiures and weaknesses are another whole part of it. Fearing He is angry over my having fear and trying to escape it as well as pain and suffering which are just part of life for all of us, causes me to spiral down in all kinds of crazy notions and feelings of anxiety and dread. As I wrote before, my inner judge is always saying, *why dont you just live in faith and obedience and love God He took care of death accept it* which is my utmost desire to do. So why have i and do i have fear about it??? Because i have not been perfected in love. I pray God will do so and i will accept and rest in His love as He desires me to. Do you experience this need??? Do you feel you do rest in His love??? Love to hear as always.

Jesus & Wonderland

2010-03-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

I wonder if Jesus would sit with the caterpillar and try the hookah or get the cheshire cat to break out in uncontrollable laughter. Actually my title is meant to contrast how Jesus turns things on their head so much as we follow Him in the Gospels. His statement that you must lose yourself in order to find yourself is the one that really has hit home inside me. A total paradox in which you do the very thing you least want to do in order to recieve the thing you most want. In the musical play Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus sings a song right after His entrance to Jerusalem on the donkey with all the people singing hosanna. Jesus sings, *Neither you simon nor the 50,000, nor the romans nor the jews, nor the priests nor the 12 nor the scribes, nor poor doomed jersualem itself, understand what power is, understand what glory is, understand at all. To conquer death you only have to die, you only have to die*

The words are so crucial to me in that they hit upon our deepest existential struggle which is knowing one day we will die. This has been, as i have spoken of so often on here, my biggest bugaboo, and for varying reasons. Death symbolizes all thats bad to me, it has even with all i have learned about how it was overcome and is really only a life transition now. I saw my dad and touched him as he lay in his casket. He was stiff and cold. He was gone forever. I hated death for doing that, and i hate it still, but in doing so i feel I have been its slave because i have always felt it was after me. Part of me just cannot understand the part of me which has this obsessive compulsion with death. I cannot in all honesty think about any time where i have not had the notion of death happening in some way or another, and how do you LIVE like that???

That is another piece of my puzzle. Have I used death as a shield to avoid the pain and risk involved in living??? I mean i have accomplished alot of things over my 48 years, but then I feel like I have not accomplished anything because this fear-obsession has always been with me. Not to mention bringing God into the mix. I have sought to live a committed life to God & Jesus since i was 16. Many ups ands downs along the way of course. I had my atheist roommate in college say i was the best example of a christian he had ever seen. I wondered if somehow i had a clone i didnt know about!!! lol I still am blown away he said that because i was always just myself around him. Never tried to convert him, just shared life as a roommate. How does someone who is seen by an atheist as best example of a christian struggle with fearing death??? How does this person struggle with living life and all its pain and risk it holds??? Wish i knew all the answers. I feel like i have always been 2 people as far as who i am with others and who i am inside myself. I treat everyone, or try to , with love grace humor and compassion. Myself- I beat myself up for any and every flaw and mistake and sin whatever it may be. No matter how many times i tried this inner judge never lets me go and always holds my fear against me. The worst of it is, I have declared myself and sought to show myself as a true workman for Jesus, flaws and all, yet this inner judge keeps me on the hook and says my fear makes it all a sham and i just better hope somehow,someway I can stay alive cuz death will be the worst. This is my bare-all struggle, the hope that God and Jesus know my faith and hope despite all this somewhere inside me, even a smidgeon. Thank you all who read this. Any comments always valued and wanted.

Hopeful Universalism

2010-03-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

There is soooooooooooo much being written out here in blogland. Alot of very deep,challenging,emotional upheaval and thought-wrenching stuff. The title of this post is where I find myself to be theologically speaking right now. I have never been one who held hardcore to the belief in hell as place of eternal torment for all nonchristians. I have questioned and pondered about how it fits in Gods plan, and the understanding that gehenna was the actual word and which meant something to the people of Jesus day very specifically has reall helped me in comingto grips with hopeful universal reconciliation.

The barriers to this hope are the whole notion of repentance and conversion. If God will save all ultimately then why is repentance called for?? Why evangelize and seek conversion??? Why not everyone just live however they want since all will turn out equally in the end??? I have no answers to these questions as they are the very questions i struggle to wrestle with myself. I see verses throughout Scripture which can support both sides. Some can lean toward a universal reconciliation, others can lean toward an exclusive reconciliation. If you have a decided upon position then naturally you will choose to focus on the verses which support your side, it is pure human nature to do so.

The love chapter in 1 Corinthians as well as verses in Romans 8 challenge me to accept my hopeful universalist position. Love always hopes,always perseveres, keeps no record of wrongs, love never fails. That is a condensed exposition of those verses but makes my point. An eternal hell where all suffer consciously for eternity seems to contradict what Paul says love is and does. God is love is the ultimate trump card to me, as Paul declares when speaking about every other attribute, including faith where he says it is all empty if you have not love. Romans 8 says that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ. Who is paul saying that too??? Dont even get me started on saying, *why the elect of course* LOL

Just a short sharing on where i am right now. Hoopefully anyone choosing to comment can stimulate more discussion and more thinking. I know similar themes are being talked about all around the net, just good to share my own 2 cents worth. Hope to hear from any and all.

Comfort and Easy Are Not What He Promises

2010-03-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

Long title there I know, but hits the nail on the head for me. I hope someday i get to meet Martin Luther in heaven, so I can share with him the struggle I have had with self-flagellation like he did. Even though the good part of my mind knows God does not want me to beat myself up in all kinds of ways, I still do it over and over again. Brennan Manning talks alot about how we are living paradoxes most all the time. We can go from seeking the deepest spiritual depth to the lowest sensual depth in a heartbeat, one moment joyful,next moment despairing. Who says the Psalms are not applicable to today???

There is quite a ruckus within evangelical Christianity currently. Response to Brian Mclarens book, * A New Kind of Christianity* indicate this struggle. Brian has been declared total heretic and many more punitive names, while others declare him to open up a new land so to speak where fresh winds of the Spirit blow and stir up new energy and vitality which the Gospel is really all about. Devoted,committed,lovers of God and Jesus are on both sides of this divide, which makes it a rock and a hard place for real. Basic differences in entire approach and understanding of Jesus and His message are being revealed here. Does God save everyone??? Does hell exist??? Can a God who reveals Himself as Love and Who left eternity to become one of us and then die for us, also want to let anyone perish in hell or annihilation???

These are not easy questions and they cannot be handled with simplistic answers. Jesus and the Gospel writers, as well as Paul and Peter, refer to the difference between earthly fathers and our Father God. Would our earthly fathers, assuming they are not psychos or wackos, lol hold a gun to our heads and say *choose me, believe in me and obey me or die endlessly forever and ever*??? These are the wonderings I have been seeking to deal with in my own self as i read the struggle going on amongst believers in the larger christian culture. Universal reconciliation..... is it truly what God wants??? A lot more to ponder about this, but some early thoughts on it all. Let me know what you think, if some of these issues hit home with you.

Just Thoughts

2010-03-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

A lot of different things floating around inside lately. Seems to be 2 different views of the Gospel and just exactly how its applied to us now. One is that Jesus did what He did and calls us to follow in imitation and obedience, seeking to live in holiness as He desires all to imitate Him in committing all to God the Father. Other view sees Jesus as having fulfilled everything for us because we never can ever and He has made it possible for us to be free from any expectations of moral behavior but to seek to live out of the love He has shown and given. Not sure i said that right, just have this uneasiness inside me about living up to a certain standard and how to do so. In Gospel of John Jesus talks alot about obedience. Of course He was talking to His apostles, but His words are meant to be universal for all time aren't they??? Just how to live out the obedience He wants is the thing.

Calvinism believes in limited atonement. Jesus only came to save the elect. The problem I have is just how do you know when your safely in that *elect*??? We are called to holiness, to being filled with and led by the Holy Spirit, to imitate Jesus in thought.word,feeling and action. We all fall short though. We all have thoughts and feelings, as well as words and deeds that fall far short of the bar of Gods perfection. No matter how high we can jump, the bar will always at some point be to high. Paul I believe says that he who seeks to live by law must keep the ENTIRE law. Only Jesus has ever done so. He came to bring Good News...... so does that mean He just holds and iron fist for us to try and live up to His standard now instead of the law????

Inside myself I have this struggle, which is exacerbated by fear which also carries with it guilt and shame. Fear of not living up to how i should, even the call of living love. Guilt and shame over not doing so, which messes with my head and then certain verses take on meanings that make me feel like i have totally failed Jesus and God and possibly never did become one of the ones who know their Shephards voice and whom the Father will not let be snatched out of His Hand.

But then i go back and think how Jesus performed it ALl perfectly and understands my constant human weakness, no matter how much it happens. He knows, understands and accepts. He takes me as I am and with all He knows I will be, failure to perform and all. I can live in freedom knowing He loves and accepts me forever as I am because of what He did and who He is, not because of what I do for Him. May take more contemplating to say all i want to say. Definitely want to hear all your thoughts. You identify with any of this?? You ever feel somehow your left out no matter how much you want to accept you are not??? So glad God is gracious to let me share no matter what the struggle may be.

Gotta Live It

2010-02-27T20:20:00.001-08:00

I hear expressions like my title alot. *walk the talk*, *actions gotta follow the words* *dont mean alot unless you live it* All are very well-meant and essentially true, but the spirit of the comments can get lost in it I think. It is a given we need to carry out our faith by our living, but i think only One Man ever got it right. I just feel like a false standard is being undergirded when those statements are made. Holiness is what we are called to, humility and service as well. I just think of the emphasis made upon living out what we believe and all that entails. It can't mean to be flawless and totally perfect in every moral way, but that idea seems to permeate for me for some reason.

Living it means to be brutally honest, even when we feel like we have nothing to give or be at the moment. It means to live it regardless how you think or feel, and have hope you will be who you committed to be in coming to God through Christ. Living it does NOT mean we are just k= like Jesus in our living because we are fallible humans, not God in flesh!!! Exhortation is needed when we are stuck or in a position of falling back. Always with grace as seasoning though. Wish I had more words come to me now to express my thoughts more. Mainly i just want to realize that we all will have highs and lows in the living out our faith journey and sometimes those who do not share our faith may judge or question us, we can rest knowing our ultimate Judge sees us in love and will lead us through even in times of hypocrisy and failure.

Safe Risk

2010-02-17T20:18:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't that be lightning in a bottle??? LOL A true oxymoron, for the very act of risk removes safe from the equation. Well, totally safe anyhow. The desire for absolute certainty is something I wish were true. Of course, no need for faith if that were to be true, at least a certain aspect of faith. We all have alot of common things in life we go through and must deal with. Death is one of them. I find it so incredible that alot of people can just be so content about death and not it let bother them in the least Why can't i be like that??? GRRRRRRRRRRRRR lol

I try to make logical sense of death in a biblical way but the aspects of it that are not logical drive me crazy!!! Death happens to us all, Jesus removed the sting of death and promises He will never leave us and death cannot separate us from Him EVER!!! BUT...... see always the dumb buts!!!! What if my faith is too weak?? What if death happens anytime anywhere and i am not ready for it??? My whole way of trying to control death and my handling it is neurotic in that of course it can happen anytime ,anywhere. Sudden deaths happen all the time. I have a high risk in that i have diabetes, high blood pressure as well as congestive heart failure. Thankfully God has helped me to not spend every waking moment worried about dying. Though in my bad moments it seems that way LOl

God does not give lofty explanations of why He does things or chooses people for things. He didn't to abraham, to moses, to elijah. He merely acts because HE IS GOD!!!! He is GOOD!! My thoughts and feelings that waver on that because of emotional pain and hurts i have had i wish would be forever resolved. God is good even if He slay me, which one day will happen. help me to be at peace as You give it to me with that God.

Abuse Has Long Tentacles

2010-02-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

There was a girl born shortly after the Great Depression. Born in a small town in northern california. Small,dusty,not a lot of industry, but maybe around same amount of bars as churches. Farming was a mainstay, and she belonged to a dairyfarming family. Her mother was an odd mix. Loved to travel and se the world but also shy and reclusive. She did not think motherhood was high on her list, so she chose to have the girl raised by her aunt and uncle. Her mother was absent far more than present, a tentacle of emotional abuse. Her aunt and uncle were quiet,hardworking,serious folks, no real displays of affection, either physically or verbally. They moved quite a bit, from lil town to lil town, the girl learned that friendships were hard because once she made one, inevitably they would move.

It began quietly, as she was alone in her room. He would come in,call her sweet ames and make her laugh and feel cared for. He began the touching and fondling. Something in her told her it was not right, but he was her uncle, acting as her father, for her biological father had been an alcoholic who never really embraced his daughter, and he died a few years after her birth. Her uncle made her feel good,womanly.attractive and loved. He never displayed affection any other time or any other way.The girl thought her aunt must have known what had been going on, but she feigned ignorance. Better to keep skeletons locked in the closet than worry about them rattling around causing problems.

The girl grew up, she learned to rely on her intellect and inner strength. She hardly ever got sick, not even colds. Showing affection was quite hard for her, as she was both neglected and recieved it in a dysfunctional way. Abuse tentacles are long and stretch across decades. She entered nursing school and joined the military as an RN 2nd Ltnt. She met a man there, fell in love and married, even having her first child on base. The abuse did not prevent her from finding love and making a family of her own. Its tentacles can be overcome.

Her man died about 9 years after their marriage. She did not marry again. Various reasons of why. Certainly feelings of abandonment,loss,a whole host of emotions swirling inside, and she had the pain of lielong emotional and physical abuse inside,fighting her in the decisions she had to make as to living life. A widow, 2 lil kids. Resilience,determination,faith and hope and love drove her as she carried on her life. The tentacles always lurked in the shadows, would they reach even to her children???

Complete Fulfillment

2010-02-08T20:19:00.001-08:00

Jesus last words before He died on the cross were, *it is finished* A lot of conjecture can go into the exact meaning of those words. Many know of Josephus, a jewish historian who lived in the time of Jesus and recorded some wonderful writings of his time. AD 70 is a very important date in history. It was the siege by Rome upon jerusalem and the absolute destruction of the temple. Many believe this was the fulfillment of Jesus prophecy where He said He would come again and that judgment would happen upon this generation of the jews. Very controversial to many because the majority theological/eschatological viewpoint has been premillennial dispensationalism for quite some time. Look at Matthew 24 and the Olivet Discourse though. Read the time statements Jesus used, as well as Paul, John, Mark,Luke and Peter. All refer to a short time span, soon,shortly,near at hand and so on. Jesus said there were some who would not see death till His Words had come to pass. I doubt anyone in the 1st century is still living somewhere now Hmmmmm.

You can google preterism, past fulfillment,realized eschatology,covenantal theology to read more on this viewpoint. Also, love to have more of you stop by http://www.talkgrace.com and see the many conversations going on over there. Hope this spurs your interest to know more.

Focus

2010-02-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

Life sure has a lot to it doesn't it??? So many things that call our attention. Bible says to *be still and know I AM God* There is so much emphasis on how we think, the renewal of our mind. Praying without ceasing. I think females have an easier time with focus, after all males are supposed to think about sex every 8 seconds or so LOL

Jesus fulfilled the Law and gives us access to God directly. He died for us while we were yet sinners. He turned all over to disobedience so that He might have mercy on ALL. Romans 11 there. Why is it calvinists/reformed believe that there are a special electthat are the only ones who Jesus saved??? This will be discussed ad nauseum i'm sure but i still cringe to think a God who defines Himself as love would create a humaity who would end up mostly all being banished from Him to suffer in eternal flame??? A lil schizophrenic there imho.

Does Jesus need anything from us to save us??? Doesn't repentance come AFTER we realize what He has done??? Even so we all still sin so??? Does Jesus require our obedient performance in order to save us??? Take a peek at Kingdom Grace for a post exploring this. What do you think though??

Not Me- WE

2010-02-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

Muhammad Ali said this in a speech he gave in Africa awhile ago. I think it may have been all he said. It was more than enough. Western culture has been so much about me. Self- improvement, self-actualization,self-image, on and on. Jesus spoke to crowds as well as the 12. He spoke to communities. I think we miss the boat alot here in the USA as far as that goes, although we do get it sometimes as well. We know how to come together and energize as one when crisis hits. In the normal humdrum though, are we in a default position of our minds to have an individualistic response to what goes on in life??? While we are in a worship service do we seek a *personal time with God*??? Arent we told Jesus wants us to have a personal relationship with Him??? Maybe just maybe Jesus meant for us to have a community relationship with Him. The Church is PEOPLE not an individual. Preaching to the choir here, just thoughts stimulated by a few posts on a blog i suggest all who read this go read.

Kathyescobar.com. She just got back from Africa. Everyone who journeys there has their world rocked, especially coming from living here in the USA. Kathy has very compelling things to say about church,community, the 99 vs the 1. Go there and read her posts. kathyescobar.com

http://www.kathyescobar.com Love to hear what you think!!!

Hurdles

2010-01-29T20:44:00.000-08:00

I always have liked watching hurdlers. Takes a lot of determination and skill to run as fast as you can while jumping over hurdles, a lot of good vision and coordination, both of which i lack lol I dont necessarily have the same affection for my own particular hurdles in my life. I wish i could be like super mario or the guy in donkey kong and magically leap over the hurdles without it taking effort.

I think God is gradually working to chisel away at my fear struggle. Actually I am sure He has been doing that all along, but i have a hard time accepting the ways He chisels. I have had, along with every other living being on this planet, even animals, many painful experiences that hurt. Physically,emotionally,mentally and relationally. A desire to avoid the pain kicks in as it did way back when. Of course, avoiding pain can result in even more pain which screws up the whole plan!!! My hurdles have been my own imagination. I have been able to imagine myself possibly getting almost every disease or malady in existence. Of course i haven't even come close but it hasn't stopped my imagination from saying *what if*??? *What if* is a very paralyzing frame of mind isn't it?? Ultimately the love and grace of God is the answer to what if. When i do my merry-go-round of all my worries about what if i end up at that place, where i can only rely on God being who He is. Somehow i find a way to lose sight of that and go back on my what if rabbit trail again and again.

Feelings are my hurdles too. When i feel the love and grace and peace of God o man is it incredible!!!!! Or when i just have a calm serenity knowing He is there and in charge. When my feelings swerve into anxiety, worry,fear and any sense of discomfort, I get all twisted. My imagination begins telling me my feelings are who i am and so I must be a fearful,worrying wreck who can't rest in faith and trust in God. You can only guess what happens when that series of thoughts happens. Ugh.

Thankfully, God is helping me ever so slowly as i said before to realize He undertands all this and loves me as He always has and always will. I hope i can daily find my way to resting in that truth and letting it draw me closer and closer to Him. How about you, do you have any of these kinds of hurdles??? Do you find your feelings can become enemies instead of allies at times??? Do you find when you are in pain it drives you closer to God and to seek Him out or does it drive you away from Him?? All sharing welcomed.

He who began a good work in you

2010-01-26T20:56:00.000-08:00

Awesome comments from my last few posts. Thank you janice and miriam!!! Refocusing here today. Just focusing on His Word and what He says about Himself and what is said about Him, how can I not find rest and peace in Him and His love??? The trouble starts when I lose focus on HIm and His love, and it happens all too easy. Like i said about the Isrealites in the desert, such short memories.Why does my memory get so short??? I think holding onto past sins and failures and losses is part of the reason.

When I was in jr college i was intending to be a psychologist. I got all A's one semester, making the deans list, and all my professors who were psychologists were very encouraging. I am horrible at math. i never took algebra, am scared of fractions and dont even go there with word problems ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! I have a math phobia in a way. I found out that psychologists have to take statistics to achieve their degree. I froze!!! No way could i possibly pass that class!!!! Dreams of being a counselor sunk down deep :( I didn't think about a tutor, i just felt I was pulled out of the game due to this one class. I had also thought about being a minister, as it was a helping profession as well. I chose to pursue ministry by going to Bible College. I think in hindsight i did this due to the fear of failing statistics. Not the best reason to pursue ministry. What ended up happening in Bible College was i discovered youth ministry was not really for me, Why had i not pursued pastoral counseling or Bible and become an associate minister??? My dreams i had before beginning Bible College were evaporated now as well. I ended college and went to live with my mom and seek a job that I had not been working towards at all the past 5 years!!

I think the sense of my own failure and lack of perseverance and determination to pursue my dreams in spite of obstacles and fear of failing has been like a shadow following me ever since. Not to mention i had been in a cocoon of disneyland-like surrounding while at Bible College. The actual hard reality of life is not experienced there. I was now removed from that environment, away from friends, away from professors, forced to make do by finding some kind of job.

I just mention all that not as a pity/poor me thing, sure hope it doesnt sound that way. But to talk out loud about some reasons for my inner battle i have written of at length. God has been there through all of it, His love and grace as they always are. Why such a penchant for self-abuse and feeling like i deserve punishment and being left out for my weaknesses and poor choices?? That is to be explored more here. Gods greatness- my weakness and how He embraces me in it all. Keep sharing if you stop by here please. Love hearing from anyone!!!

Seeking

2010-01-25T21:07:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to make sense of my inner craziness once again. I have that ongoing inner dialogue dealing with fear, pain,hurt,love,hope and peace. All these themes intermixed. I have not struggled with believing God exists, for me it has been what will God do. I read Scripture, I pray and also listen to prayers of others, I see God at work in people lives and in the events of daily life all over the world, I can relax and rejoice in Him and His goodness.

But, oh those stinkin buts, lol when I think about myself and how i have had fear, neem worried over my health, over rejection, over bad choices, failures and areas of weakness. I struggle to relax and realize Him and His goodness, because I am thinking/feeling He is looking down in anger, disappointment or disinterest. Why do i have this struggle??? I go crazy inside my skin because i reflect back. I made my repentance and commitment way back at 16. I have sought to follow directions of His ways as He lays out in His Word. Yet, at the same time, I pursued selfish desires or desires that were for pleasure or some kind of distraction.

My nightly prayer for almost 4 years now has been- seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, seek the intimacy with Jesus the apostle Paul speaks of in Philippians, and seek the wound and the blessing as jacob did at peniel. In many ways as i look back at life events since those prayers, i can see God answered them. Not necessarily how I wanted him too but that is a good thing indeed. i am not sure just what exactly i am seeking in ways which adds to the struggle. I do know what i am seeking but at the sametime I want it to be on my terms, which is a root of the whole problem to begin with!!!!

I want to be like Jesus and to love as He loves and love God and my neighbor as myself. I also want to do things my own way and have God let me wander off to do so a lil bit and i will be back to Him first soon enough. Why can't i just be dead to sin and alive to God fulltime 24/7 and not have these other desires??? Do you have this struggle or do you find you are able to be dead to sin and your own desires and fully alive to God and His desires??? i am seeking. All responses welcomed.

Scary Freedom

2010-01-23T16:37:00.000-08:00

Don't you hate it when you read so much good stuff and want to add your own thoughts to the mix, but just can't think of what to say??? I do. many posts used to just fly off my fingers from my mind, not so much lately. I suspect a part of it is the frustration of my own feeling stuck in a place i have been for sometime, although some changes and growth have occurred. Why is it my mind and spirit so fully grasp Gods unlimited Presence and love, yet my heart and will struggle to dive in and swim with Him where He is???

Freedom. That is a privilege we all desire right??? Surely if you or I were a slave we would do anything we could to hasten our freedom....or would we??? God brought the Israelites out from Egypt and slavery. He performed amazing miracles in doing so. After a while though they lost sight of all that and started grumbling and arguing amongst each other and wondering why leaving Egypt was so good anyhow, as opposed to wandering in the desert. They forgot where they had been taken from and where they were being taken too!!!!! They had God present with them and still they whined and were unhappy in their freedom!! How dumb could those Israelites be right??? I mean if i were ever in a place where God was actually present i would never groan and complain and long to go back to slavery right??? Riiigghhttttttttttttt as Bill Cosby would say.

God is always HERE. Just not in the form of a cloud or burning bush or something. Why have I let fear be such a factor and a blockade for so much of the time?? God has brought me through so many things, so many times. Funny how in the midst of those events i had no trouble knowing and believing He was there. Oh yes i had fears and doubts mixed in, but I was mostly able to know and feel His presence and love and grace. When i am just living life, going about it daily, fear seems to preoccupy my mind and I find it hard to even recall I was free of it.

I want to obey and live out the 2 great commandments- love the Lord your God with all your mind,heart,soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Scary freedom is that i fail to so often. I choose to seek comfort and just being able to do as i please or choose, especially if it doesn't cost me anything in effort or time or whatever. Of course I do find ways to love but why do i not just do it all the time naturally and with a whole heart of total gratitude and enthusiasm???

There is a part of my heart that questions God and His plan. He says in His Word those who desire to live godly lives will be persecuted..... i don't want that. He says we learn and grow through suffering..... I don't want that either. He makes all these promises about peace,love,total joy and eternal life that is without any of the pain and hurt we experience here on earth. Why then does He seem absent or inactive??? Why does all this pain,suffering and death happen???/ This is the shadowed area where my inner cries exist and cause fear to linger and hover. Freedom calls me to be patient and wait in faith for Him to lead and guide me as He promised. i wish it were not so scary to do that.

How do you feel??? Is freedom scary??

hold on to hope

2010-01-16T15:11:00.000-08:00

Hard to decide what to write lately. I have great admiration for writers, as they find ways to express themselves even when their mental well is very dry. Still cannot believe pat roberstsons remark about the haiti earthquake being a result of a pact with satan. I think pat took his failed presidential bid a bit too hard or he secretly drinks the demon rum. Anyways.

God has been showing me to pay more attention to the small things day by day. He is truly patient and He works and acts according to His good pleasure. Imagine my chagrin to realize my idea pf patience is sooooooooooooo different from His!!!! Doesn't He know certain things need to happen ASAP!!! Holding onto hope also. My heart is now pumping at 50% in the lower chamber, where it had been as low as 15 % when I had my atrial fibrillation. I hope for my heart to sustain me for a long life, but if it doesn't then i place my hope in He who made me. Learning to see fear from a different angle. I have struggled with it most of my life as i have mentioned quite a few times. Either trying to find a way to control it,remove it,repress it,accept it or do something to and with it. The bottomline of fear is pain and a desire to avoid it. Fear causes me to think i will experience some form of pain i don't want. My dads death was a deep painful experience and so death became an object of fear. Even though God had Jesus die and resurrect, proclaiming victory over death, i could not emotionally totally absorb that and rest in it. Somehow,some way, i could mess things up and end up dying in a state where I had failed God by lack of faith and obedience. I have not only been around the block but around the universe with this whole issue lol

Gods love and grace and His absolute grip on me and all His creation forever is settling in deeper than the fear and abandonment/rejection slowly but surely. When i was younger i was able to push these struggles onto the backburner more easily, especially being in Bible College, Seminary and involved in ministry at a Church surrounded by friends. harder to do as time passes and the things used to lean on all get stripped away. Gods love and grace are real and present regardless of my own distorted perceptions, feelings and thoughts. AMEN to THAT!!! :) I just need to learn to tell my mind where to get off when it goes on lil rabbit holes that try to block or hide my realizing Gods presence as always here. I wish was a much faster learner in that way. Holding onto hope, He helps me to do that.

Let God

2009-12-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

So many things swirling inside. I want to make my posts series about therapy with God, just feel so caught up in my own mess for some reason. The compulsion to be perfect, yet knowing it is impossible. The feeling of failing because of making so many wrong choices which impacted me internally in ways i never realized would linger so long. I have not experienced nearly anything as bad or rough as so much of the world, yet find so many ways to mess myself up. I have spoken adnauseum of my battle with fear on here, but why have i had this battle knowing God in Jesus took the need for fear away??? How can i have have lived and gone through all i have been blessed and privileged to experience in the course of my life and all along deep inside is this shadow of fear???? I just don't get how to completely not fear like Jesus tells the apostles when He is in the boat and a huge storm hits, or when angels appear to people. What the heck!!!! I hate sounding like a broken record, this battle just seems to go on and on even after i seem to have made progress, whatever i determine that to be.

God, Jesus, you know everything inside me, all my motivations and desires. You know i want to love You with all my heart mind soul and strength, and that i also want to do what i want and leave You be certain times and just do whatever i want, no real reason other than something in me wanting my way. I know You kjow best, You are Love. Help me to let that truth be realized in my heart and will as it is in my mind. Thank You i can pour my heart out on here regardless who sees it and know You hear and will provide me Your Presence Show Yourself again and again as needed Holy God. Thank You for Jesus as we prepare to celebrate His coming to earth as one of us.

In Session- Therapy with God

2009-12-18T22:13:00.001-08:00

I got this idea from seeing a book that talked about having angry conversations with God, susan isaacs i think was the author?? Sounded very enlivening so I thought, why not. A small caveat- any thing said in these writings may or may not be a real event or occurrence and all is a mishmash of what lies within the parameters of my medulla oblongata.

*Walks into office, first session occurring* Oh, I shall refer to God as He for brevitys sake and again, it is a mix of fiction,nonfiction,literal,hyperbole what have you. On with the show*

Wow, quite a ordianry place here, although the black leather couch is nice. A fishtank too. Must be for the calming effect. I don't know how i would decorate my office if i ever became a counselor.

He- I do like fish.even have a lil hermit crab in there if you look close enough. Hope you find the couch comfy enough.

Me- oh i can handle anything, folding chair,metal chair,ottoman. Anyway, so why did i come here??? *Waits, tapping fingers on arm of couch, making lil jeopardy theme music sounds*

He- Trying to play the *He already knows all the answers so of course He knows why I came here*card??? Ah now you should know better by now, how many Bible College discussions, as well as Seminary did you have about that one??? Just because I know doesn't mean I will reveal anything to you. You doid read some Francis Schaeffer didn't you??? He is there and He is not silent??? Hmmmm, well maybe.....

Me- Sounds of Silence, one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs. They were visionaries you know??? Wish there were more of them around.

He- the Beatles were the best. But shhhhhhhhhh you didn't hear that from Me. *small chuckle*

Me- I have much love for the Beatles, always was a Paul guy, though John was an icon. How did we get off on talking about the Beatles??? I thought i came here for serious spiritual talk. *makes a frown*

He- well who says we haven't talked about serious spiritual stuff??? Just why does it have to be put in a specific box anyway??? Oh i see time is up. More next time. Listen to a lil Carly Simon on the way home, I hear *your so vain* was written about warren beatty!!! hahah bet shirley maclaine gave him a hard time over that one!!!

Me- You are a character. I think i get it a lil more why Your ways are not our ways and such. Anyway, next time. * Exits office*

I am just free-associating here. Sometimes it may seem a bunch of silly fluff, other times it may go towards the deep end. It is something that is a helpful thing for me to express through right now, hopefully any of you who stop by and peek a lil will leave a comment and let me know what you think. This is NOT an attempt to be theologically perfect,it is just a creative way to communicate relating to God. Merry Merry everyone!!!

A Priori

2009-12-14T14:24:00.000-08:00

Nothing Prior I have always had an affinity for latin words, they just sound so mensalike whatever that is lol Putting A beforeanything changes its pronunciation and its meaning. A+ theist = atheist-no belief in theism. A+millennial= no belief in a millennium. So many examples, and of course the A doesn't always mean no or none, just a lot of the time. Just how far do we go in life where we can lay claim to having an a priori understanding of anything??? One year??? Seems like babies are getting pushed to mature developmentally faster and faster every year.

I have just been wondering about this a lil bit after perusing around the net and seeing so many sides to certain things, which is the beauty of freedom of speech amen??? Just made me wonder what the prior events were which helped form and shape the attitudes and views of each person??? The notions of force and choice reverberated inside my brain once again.

God is love. He uses that as a Self-defining term of His own revelation of Himself to us. Love connotes certain attitudes and actions as belonging to its nature. Calvinism and arminianism have been at odds over the eons over the issues of force and choice, or determinism and freewill. Does God want us to be robots with choice??? Does He make some of us in a certain way only He knows the outcome too and yet lets it appear as though the outcome has not already been determined a priori??? I mean, it is possible because He is God and of course as God He has every right to do as He wishes with His creation, no questions asked, no explanation needed. What kind of feeling does that leve in you though??? Does that sound like the God who would come after the one lost sheep, leaving the other 99 till He found the lost one??? Does it sound like the God who represents the father of the prodigal son, who dropped everything and forgot about appearances because He was overjoyed to see His son come back to Him??

I have a lil craziness inside my head, as i am sure we all do. Mine may be a lil different than yours, not necessarily worse so dont get uppity over there lol. I have many instances where i choose to do what i want to do, I have many where i choose what God wants me to do. I have no problem giving God the glory for helping me to choose the right and for forgiving me when i have chosen the wrong. My lil craziness is when I go through periods where things feel dark and gray and like the light is being partially blocked. Certain concepts or verses trouble me alot in those times, like the ones saying His sheep know His Voice and come to Him as He calls. Did something happen to my hearing or am i not the sheep i thought i was??? Verses that speak of obedience and holiness and faith in ways that just leave me wondering, how has anyone ever pulled that off??? The verses which speak of all being sinners who have not sought after God, of those who fall even after walking with Him a long time. My own lil craziness makes me wonder if I have somehow missed the boat on what He wanted from me and maybe I never was intended to do so anyway and just did not realize it. Craziness.

God is love. To me, this truth indicates God will go to whatever lengths and means necessary to reach down and reveal Himself to any and all who He created, even *the least of these* who could just be messed up ones with a lil bit of craziness like me. Makes me wanna put on a Loiis Armstrong voice and pretend to play the horn while singing, *and i say to myself, what a wonderful God* Word change by me. A Priori.

What Child Is This?

2009-12-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

I really love christmas music. Just overflows with joy,energy,gratitude and hopefulness. As well as the just plain fun ones to renew a childlike spirit. This song is one I want to think deeper about. Greensleaves is a very cool song to me, and I like the entire melody. What Child Is This contains some very solid theology within its verses though. It portrays the future which Jesus shall have as He fulfills His call as Messiah. This child defies all conventional wisdom, born in a manger because he had no home, in the barest of clothes. Pure humility from the one who is greatest of all.

There is a famous saying, *those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it* The context is usually set in a political or military context like nazi germany and the holocaust. I think it can be applied universally to any given situation though. Families, countries,businesses,organizations,the church. I think God entered into human history to tell us in an objective way who He is and how He feels about us,in spite of our treatment and understanding of Him. This is why Scripture has such importance. Why the historical record of how we have been Jesus Church ever since His acensions matters so. It serves to steady our focus when different things want to tear us apart.

i am so thankful for many who choose to be very transparent and openly discuss their doubts,fears and struggles on their blogs. Always a genuine encouragement. Sometimes I can get wrapped up in a certain feeling or fear or something and I will tell myself to just let it go because God has it all under control, but it lingers and stays and that begins a whole new quandary in itself. I am so glad i can come back and think on What Child Is This, or certain Scripture passages, or words of an online friend or even someone I dont even know, and have that reminder God is Love and showed it in the most powerful way possible and lets us come back to Him again and again, neverending, just as we are.

Good Not Safe

2009-12-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

In the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis does a great job of allegorizing the Gospel as a fantasy story. Jesus is portrayed as a lion, most majestic,powerful and awed of all animals. One of the children in the story wonders about the lion, named Aslan, and asks if he is safe. The reply given is, *safe??? oh no he is not safe, but he is good* Awesome quote!!! I think this gets to the crux of the age/old debate over good and evil, pain and suffering. My mind still boggles at the disparity over time in how these issues have played out. Modern medicine has made it possible to recover us from almost any illness, while all who lived before its inception were just out of luck. Those in Third World countries and the Middle East subside on so very little and have for eons. God allows this, has allowed it since who knows when. Can anyone actually claim He preordained this????

He is good and He loves all of us the same,no playing favorites and such. Just sometimes things appear a lil fuzzy as to why He lets happen what does. I end up chasing my tail over these ideas when I wonder about my dad, dying at 30, why have I been allowed to live to almost 50??? It is chasing my tail because there is no answer really, not one i would understand in my limited capacity anyhow. I still do the chase from time to time though, regardless.

Any ways in which you consider God being good but not safe??? Ideas on pain and suffering, good and evil??? Hope to hear.

Seriously

2009-11-23T18:59:00.001-08:00

People say that when they are telling someone they are a lil off don't they??? Like, *are you really going to try that??? Seriously* Being serious has its benefits and value. I definitely want my surgeon to be serious about his work, also my dentist,pilot,mechanic and the person who manages payroll and issues the paycheck!!!! How serious do i want God to be?? Do i want Jesus to be??? Myself???

I came across a blog by a guy named jason boyett, who has just written a book about doubt, thanks to rachel held evans for interviewing him on her site and giving a link :) Jason is definitely a character and knows how to tickle your funnybone, but also make you think. Philip Yancey once said that he is a writer of books about God and his entire career is based on dealing with God and theological issues, and he said he can go a few days and hardly think about God at all. Whattttttttttttttt???? I wonder if he listened for thunder after he wrote that??? Hmmmm Just got me to thinking about being so serious all the time, or thinking God is wanting that. After all, being holy and maturing into a strong person of Christlike character surely requires maximum serioussness does it not???

I always have wished that the Bible had a verse that said *Jesus laughed* I am sure Jesus laughed heartily on a regular basis, i mean come on look who He was hanging around down here. I wonder if Jesus would have said DOH like homer simpson to tease one of the 12 when they did something silly??? I am sure Jesus had lots of palytime as well. Did they play hide and seek back then??? Mother may I??? Had to have red rover red rover!!!! Love to see the look on the face of whoever was waiting for Jesus to run and break through their chain. LOL

I just realized in reading jasons blog how i am so serious so much on here, and it is because i want to be serious about being vulnerable and transparent and seeking Jesus guidance even amidst my constant falling down. But, fun and laughterm relaxing and play also have major roles in living life and being vulnerable and transparent. Is there a freedom God gives in our call to holiness that we can miss and become overly serious and perfectionistic about??? The ways He wanted those in the 1st century to live out their relationship was a bit different than how He intends us now to live it out right??? We can't be perfect imitations of Paul, Peter, James. Sometimes its easy to just get too serious. Thank you for having the greatest sense of humor of all Almighty God!!!!

Weak and Strong

2009-11-22T16:53:00.000-08:00

I wrote a few posts about the words choice and force a few years back, you can find them in the archives if your interested. Singing a worship song today in service made me think of these 2 words and the meaning they hold. The song said how we are weak and He is strong. So true. Scripture is filled with mentions of our weakness and how Gods strength will empower us and He will be glorified in our weakness. I thought about our western and particularly american mindset of rugged individualism and how we believe we need to be strong to take care of life, in all its facets. Do we struggle to admit that we are weak??? Aren't we called to be strong in faith and courage as firm believers??? i think as in so many things there is tension there. Jesus likes to be similar to alice in wonderland whats up is down whats right is left. We need to balance strength and weakness.

I had another way of looking at my challenge with fear. Jesus asked the Father if possible, that the cup be taken away, meaning the death He was going to face. In His humanness Jesus wanted to avoid the pain and suffering and separation of death, but He said Gods will be done and followed it. I have had such a hard time figuring out the interplay between natural human fear and reluctance to die and the promise and assurance God gives ultimately. I think I placed an overemphasis on being fully free from fear in a way God did not ask for. I just felt such relief inside hearing about Jesus human struggle in the garden. That is why Jesus identifies with every single thing we go through, mind will and emotions.

Suffering is a reality and one God uses for His purposes, which none of us can fully grasp or comprehend, we are just limited by our finiteness. There is a natural desire to avoid,escape and be free from suffering, but God supersedes that desire and allows us to undergo it, and He says it for our ultimate good as well. A pocket within the church has taught a prosperity gospel which teaches God wants us healthy,wealthy and free from problems. i am sure most quickly disavow this teaching, but it can sneak in underneath our radar in ways we do not catch. I know my lifelong battle with fear and wanting to avoid suffering and pain has placed me in a stance that puts selfconcern over Gods sovereign control and purpose, not in a direct way that i cross my arms and defy God, but just in my wanting to be pain free. In the times when i have experienced pain and suffering, I usually experience a closer intimacy with God and even other people in ways that don't happen otherwise normally. The resistance is still there though.

Do you have this tension??? Do you struggle to accept both your strengths and weaknesses??? Do you fight God internally over facing suffering of some kind??? I hope to learn more to accept the strengths He has given me as opposed to focusing on the weaknesses and tough parts. Sometimes life feels too overwhelming, but He calls and says He will never leave or forsake us and so life gets lived.

How To Trust

2009-11-15T21:31:00.000-08:00

Just in a whirlwind internally lately. So much swirling inside my head and heart and trying to know what to do. I have sought to make this blog my place to share vulnerably and openly, even thought it may be repetitive alot. I so love the fact that there are so many blogs of all kinds that can be explored by anyone and everyone and have interaction and feedback so quickly.

I haven't seen the movie *where the wild things are* but in reading reviews of it i am sure it would hit home to me. I know it is about an 8 year old boy with anger issues and who is introverted and has a hard time with life. I am 48 but 8 was a pivotal year for me because it is the year my father died. I have referenced this many times over my blogging life. I think losing a parent is always a hard thing for anyone at any age, because of the relationship. I thought I had answers for all my fears and my struggles to live from a mature place as opposed to the immature child place emotionally and relationally. i might need to write in story form about these things as it seems to flow easier and not so stilted.

I trust God,Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I believe the Bible is Gods Word. I am committed to living for the kingdom of God, all this fully in my head. i ache over why my heart/will has battled to live what my head knows to be true. The commands to have faith and obey scream inside me, and I wonder how I can have been the places i have been in life and be struggling with trusting God as i do. I don't want to have my fear of death as i have said so often but it is there. I read so many blogs, books,hear sermons. Some point to a way where repentance is done in such a way that Jesus life and the power of the Spirit just naturally flow and life is transformed. Then i see ones where emphasis is on our weakness and brokenness and Jesus accepts us aswe are, so weak in faith and obedience and He leads us in our weakness to know His strength.

Paul talks about his struggle to do the right thing and so often do the wrong thing. This from a man who saw Jesus in a vision and who was ultimately one of the most devout followers of Jesus ever. He said he fought with himself and sin daily. I go through this everyday many times a day. I sit and pray for God to let me be free from fear and to live in trust and obedience to Him. My mind and heart just wait to have Him answer in someway. Sometimes He gives a sensing of His presence. Other times there is nothing felt, but I believe He is there. I just don't know how I fall on His scale,and maybe that is the problem in alot of ways. Everything is level at the foot of the cross. But what level of faith and obedience is needed??? Is it an accomplishment or is that not the way to take it. Does everyone in their own way battle these same issues???

I just am wanting to break out of my own head in all this. I had so many people pray for me while i dealt with my heart trouble, and i felt those prayers!!!! I was able to rest in a quiet confidence that God was taking care of me through all those prayers. I want to be able to just let go of all my frustration at myself for having struggled with fear for so long, as opposed to bein gat some standard that exists somewhere inside me. I just have to write these things out as opposed to keeping them all in my head. I hope to hear from anyone, any thoughts that come to mind. I am continually learning to trust.

Nothing

2009-11-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

Quite an interesting word. Nothing. Is it positive or negative??? I guess it depends on the context it's used in. Context determines a lot of things,even though we may not consciously be aware of context in the midst of going about our day. I think theologically nothing has a very meaningful context.

Nothing is impossible with God, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Pretty powerful images there. Why is it we have constant need for reminder that these statements are true??? I was reading a post on a blog talking about gospel-centred preaching,whether it ever gets old. The author made the point that it never gets old and is always relevant and infuses is because we tend to drift from it if we don't have the reminder. If you read the Bible you will see Jesus and alot of the other authors in various books repeat themselves quite a bit. It is because we need that emphasis and reminder!!!!

Sometimes I feel alone in my battles with fear,rejection,abandonment,death. Feel is the appropriate word because with my mind i know i am far from alone. I saw another post at Kingdom Grace where she was talking about how believers universally have underlying issues with rejection and abandonment,even in regards to God. The reassurance of the Gospel is an antidote to these struggles. Nothing. Fear makes nothing into a very frightening and empty place. It takes away the feeling of comfort and assurance,stability and calmness, replacing it with anxiety,loss and worry. I think it gets worse when accompanied by a doublewhammy of thinking/feeling that no fear should be present at all to begin with, so you are reeling from fear and then fear of the fear.Nothing. Nothing can stop the fear or the uneasiness it causes. Or can it???

Thankfully there is something that can replace the nothing fear tries to inpose. I just want to keep the something always present with me. Of course it IS always present as God can never be made to disappear. Fear tries to make that feel like He is though. Sometimes circumstances and events that occur in life make it seem true. Pain,suffering,rejection,ridicule,failings. All can contribute to a feeling of having nothing. Gods grace and love speak differently though.

What do you think about nothing??? Do you ever feel like your nothing??/ Or that nothing can overcome your struggles??/ Do you feel nothing can overcome the love of God as you experience it??/ Always curious to hear anyones thoughts. Peace.

Staying In The Present

2009-11-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

Been having a tough time thinking what to write about. The notion of the present is a good one though. I know i have a very tough time staying here,in the present. My imagination likes to wander and meander all over the place, be it past or future. I wonder if there is a way to have the past viewed in a way precisely as it happened??? Or is it always tinged by our own perception which is flawed??? Like when people refer to the *good ole days* I doubt they were seen as such when they were happening. Our memories tend to wax nostalgic,even when we know at the time they were occurring there was no such nostalgic sentiment applied to them!!!!

I wish there was a way to *control the future from the present* Don't you ever wish so??? I would control events in such a way good things happened and bad things didnt. Sounds idyllic doesnt it??? Just a wee bit prideful and selfcentered though. What about everyone elses future??? I would want good and not bad for them as well, but maybe we would differ on just what that would mean or entail??? Complications come into play. Hmmmm, maybe *playing God* with the future is not all it seemed cracked up to be.

Fear. Yes once again, it is just relentless that way for me. It is like an invisible ghost as opposed to a feeling or sensation so much of the time. I had a few thoughts i wanted to write about that had come to mind but now they are gone. i hope they return. I think my battle with fear has ebbed and flowed with the events in life as they have occurred. I have sought to escape the pain of the past by trying to avoid it in the future. Denial or avoidance are never good solutions though. The whole idea of fear as a force that just swoops down and does its damage like a hurricane is a troubling thing, especially when fear is linked to death. Why have i had such an inability to accept fear and death in a way that takes the emotional power away from them??? That underlies the problem really. Why have they both overcome my imagination and emotional absorption in a way that blocks God??? Ugh, i dont know. I dont want to accept that i have let that be the case.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. Something in me has fought this and when whatever that is goes on, it just causes like a paralysis or quicksand feeling. Amazing all this time and all the ways my battles with fear and death have left me able to live on and know Gods love remains constant. Even though Gods love is always present and nothing can separate me from it doesnt mean i will always feel it all the time right??? Do you have trouble *feeling* Gods love??? Do you think it is a wrong understanding to think we can always *feel* Him and His love??? Hopefully these questions are reflective for you. I know He has helped my struggle with fear to become less over these last many months. Praise Him for always being present :D

Because He Cares

2009-10-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

Life has so many peaks and valleys, for everyone regardless your race,gender,creed. We all face a lot of good times and a lot of bad, some tilt way over on one side of the scale. No reason given as to why, but it happens. There are many who have chosen to de-convert from Christianity. They have decided they can no longer believe as they once did, and I'm sure the reasons vary for each person as it does for those who come to faith. I can definitely see and make sense of why some get soured on what is put forth as Christianity at times, especially the health/wealth message, but also ones where God becomes alot like the wizard of Oz,demanding certain actions of any who come before Him and threatening to destroy if they disappoint Him.

My post title comes from a verse, I believe in 1 Peter, where Peters tells us to cast all our anxieties upon God, because He cares for us. There is no caveat there. It doesn't say because He demands perfect faith, perfect obedience,or any kind of performance from us. He cares about us and wants to take all our worries and troubles upon Himselfm because He is big enough to handle it.

I am seeking to come to grips in a new way with fear, as i have sought to deal with it in endless frustration for so long. I think a large part of that is my thinking there has to be an action I do, a way I willfully or in a certain level of faith make the fear disappear. I think my focus has been off and He is the One to remove it. How to grasp this and accept it is the tricky part. A part of me holds back and is like, *I don't know, i see ways You have let certain things happen, if i just completely let go and trust You then You may cause something to happen as a test or something.* I then go through ruminations where i challenge that thinking and realize that actually He doesn't have to wait for me to do anything to cause something to happen. My worst moments are those times when I worry sudden death could happen any second and i am in one of my *down times* and don't want to meet God then. Just sharing how it happens in my head, lol.

I worry about how i write on here at times. But then i take it back, because this is my place to express all areas of myself, especially ones i hold inside and only share silently to God. It is therapy a lot in my writing, it is also healing and challenging, especially to recieve comments. No matter how hurting,struggling,questioning or anything else i am, I have the bottomline that God is love and He cares for me. He cares for all of us. He is big enough to hear our cries, even when we choose to reject Him, He knows we can come back.

Inner Talk

2009-10-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

We all have an inner dialogue going on within ourselves. It differs for each one of us. Is the *voice* a mixture of conscience,our parents,our desires,others and God??? I thought about writing this post in a way I saw on another blog. Me- then Voice- just like that. Maybe i will sometime. Iwish the *voice* i dialogue with would just chill and not challenge me so much and cause me to reflect so much. Of course it is not just a single voice, at least I am not schizophrenic right???? lol Hmmmm :)

Why is it so hard to accept and internalize Gods love??? i speak to and for myself here. My inner battle has been so much to take and let fear go, because the fear is Gods love is somehow blocked from my experiencing it as He intended for me too. This happened because I was lacking faith and obedience from an early age. I go back and forth, well Gods love is free and unconditional, and His grace is unearned. You cannot work for it and nothing you could ever do would make Him love you anymore or any less. Countering that are thoughts saying - you have been weak, you have been selfish, you have been so obessed with death and pain as opposed to fixing your eyes on Jesus and resting fully in Him. You have too much fear and worrying about what might happen, when you should be worryfree and always acting to serve Me and love others.

When i am interacting with others, whatever setting that might be, I can get away from all this junk i just said going on in my head and its great to have that, great to be with people. I don't know how and why i have lived this long, had so much of the experiences I have had and still struggle with this *inner talk* in the way I do. Even as i write this my *voice* is saying- why do you talk about this, always self-absorbed worrying what others will think,afraid to fail,afraid to succeed. God just brought through your heart troubles and your still back to all this. Let it go, get over it,overcome it and move on already.

I don't write this as self-pity, or as seeking anything in particular. i write this just as self-expression of what really goes on in my head, and even so, God loves me and seeks to guide me through. There is that reality of His Presence, I pray He will help me to accept His love and trust Him even as I feel caught in my own *inner talk*

Adversary

2009-10-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

We all know what that word means right??? Opponent,foe,enemy and any other synonyms that fit. Know what else it means??? SATAN!!!! I wish i had a soundbite of Dana Carvey saying that!!! LOL Yes, definition of satan in the Bible is adversary. It is actually a transliteration of a Hebrew word which is ha-shatan or the satan. I have written on this before but hopefully knew readers are always stopping by so......

Satan as adversary is NOT a proper name. It's not like Peter, Paul,John, Satan. It is actually a function. Satan functions as an adversary. A key also is that anywhere the word satan shows up in the Bible, you can use adversary and it means exactly the same thing. This is HUGE!!! The reason why it's huge is that translators belie a doctrinal prejudice by using satan, because it reinforces the doctrinal teaching of satan being a supernatural fallen angel. If they use adversary, that connotation is not given.

God alone is immortal and omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Satan is said to be able to tempt us and attack us anytime.anywhere so we have to beware and alert for him. How can a being who does NOT have omnipresence accomplish this??? How can he be attacking me and at the sametime be attacking President Obama if he does not have omnipresence??? See the dilemma??? There is no place in Scripture where it tells of satan and his angels being cast out of Heaven before Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Isaiah references lucifer and that has been interpreted as satan and his fall due to pride. Look at the entire context. Lucifer means shining one or lightbearer and is referring to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who had been attacking Israel and putting himself above God. The verse in Revelation is apocalyptic and is referring to the Old Covenant system which is being judged and abolished to bring in the New Covenant. This is a whole other discussion though.

The main point is, satan/adversary is actually the inherent sinful nature we recieved from Adam and Eve, which Jesus came to destroy and did so by living a perfect life which He also sacrificailly gave up for us all to save us. Look at all the references to sin and rebellion against God throughout the Bible. Look how it points to mans disobedience, mans pride and stubbornness. works of the flesh. If satan were truly a supernatural angel with powers like that of God Himself. shouldn't God have had the writers of Scripture make him a much more central character??? Shouldn't satan be the one to recieve punishment and judgment as opposed to us mere mortals????

Hope to hear any and all comments on this. The analogy of the angel and devil on our shoulders is really more accurate than it gets credit for :)

Why Don't You God?

2009-10-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

Ever ask that question??? I know i do. Probably alot more than i even realize in my mind. Why don't you-fill in the blank- God??? I mean, does it not say right smack in the Gospels, ask and you shall recieve, knock and the door will be opened??? So,why don't You God??? I think the answer would be obvious if God were a magic genie but He is not. That verse does not intend to be making God a virtual cosmic bellhop or vending machine. Who is the one in charge here???

I have been contemplating the issues of pride and resistance. Pride is really wanting to trust in ones self, to take credit and want to have things go our own way. It can get turned upside down for christians though, feeling like we just cannot do anything and are just messed up and broken. Our vision gets blurred. Does not the Bible say we are Gods workmanship??? Aren't we to have victory in Christ?? Rejoice in the Lord always and be joyfilled always??? Indeed it does, but the other side of the coin acknowledges we are clay pots that leak, weak vessels who are easily cracked and broken. The victory does not come from our own efforts, much as we may want or think we want it too.

I have written so much about fear on here, have battled it and sought to escape it, dealt with it in endless ways. I think a root at the bottom of it is wanting to have MY way of overcoming it. I have felt weak and unable and so I want to be the one to overcome it. Of course, I want to do that in a way that bypasses hard work,pain,toughness in standing strong. i want fear to evaporate easily like air in a balloon. I want all the risk and unknown and scariness which is encapsulated in fear to be taken away, so then fear is overcome. Well, if fear could be handled that easily it would not be fear would it???

I think my heart trouble has been serving to teach me lessons God wants me to learn. He is the One who gave me life, who made my heart beat, my entire self exist, so Who else to entrust my death to but Him??? I have gone round and round with this so many times in my head, my feelings have always taken over and made me feel I have no chance at beating fear, but of course in my own strength that is true. Silly me loses sight in all this somehow that He ultimately takes care of fear no matter what it is. He doesn't make it all go away, but He is right there as it happens and once it goes. He will be there always no matter what my feelings may try and say at times. He embraces me even as I tremble and want it to just go away. He will see me through.

It is like a scared little boy resides inside me and everytime ultimate fear rears its head he goes on full alert wanting to chase it away. I feel and think like i have to be invincible and fearless whatever it may be, when Jesus tells me to accept my vulnerability, tell the little boy its ok and trust Him through it. I pray I keep learning this day by day more and more and find that this need to focus on fear will slowly leave just like the air in a balloon.

God/Love Never Fails

2009-10-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

He's got the whole world in His hands. Great lil song that speaks a deep truth. Gods Being is truly unfathomable. He really is way beyond any human scope to fully figure Him out, and that is a very good thing. I don't think we would want a God who was like a rubiks cube, a bit of a challenge but aha, able to conquer it and master it. No way jose, never happening with God. I have gotten a bit of a breather from Him in the quiet times last few days. My constant wrestling with fear becomes so wearisome and I chuckle to myself that He is there just rolling His eyes and saying- will you just let it go and give it to Me already!!! :) Sometimes i get caught in my mental maze of clutter and feel like all I go through is my battle with myself and my limitations which I have ambivalence about. He gives me lots of small ways to remind me He is always here and has guided me through all kinds of adventures in spite of myself.

I got a message to a query i had made on overcoming guilt and shame and forgiving yourself. The person said what pride and audacity is it to want to recieve my own self forgiveness and overcoming this on my own as i see fit, than to accept and want to rest in the forgiveness and grace of God??? This just really hit me. I have not thought of it in that way but it really made sense. How could I seek to control fear and certain outcomes that I didnt want to happen??? Underlying all this has been the knowing that death is universal to all of us, none of us would go through it if we could help it, but ultimately it is in Gods Hands and we trust ourselves to Him in it. I wish my feelings would just go along with that all the time, but maybe God allows for them not too, just as happened in the Psalms. I do not fear death every second, but it has been frequent. The psalmists are good models for expressing those feelings anytime they emerge.

God is way bigger than my ability to figure Him out and to try and control Him. Amen He understands why i try anyhow.

Sovereignty

2009-10-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

Well my last post was tough to do in ways. God had just blessed me so much by healing a part of my heart, yet I felt the pain of failure from the past which still manifest into the present. I have been greatly encouraged by reading blogs which mention how several of Gods servants in Scripture had crises of faith even after huge achievements for and with God. Elijah, Elisha and a few others of note. Even though they experienced amazing personal experiences with God, they doubted Him,ran from Him or felt apart from Him in some way.

I read a post about calvinism at a blog just a bit ago. Rachel Evans blog if you want to read it. it hit me so strongly. She wrote about why calvinism made her cry. Ultimately its because it turns God into a God who is like the wizard of oz than the God who says He is love. Sovereignty, calvinism holds this as the highest virtue of God. His power. Well, didn't He withhold His power in order to give His mercy and grace??? My epitome of my struggle with fear is that God made it so i am not *elect* and really living on borrowed time, with no hope really because it has all been decided. Again, this is my fear that crops up inside me, not my belief. The fear is followed by punishing myself internally for being so selfcentered and worrying about myself and my destiny as opposed to just accepting Gods sovereign will. I worry for anyone and everyone who is not *elect* under this scenario. I honestly do not want anyone to burn in eternal torment in hell.

I still have more wonderings to express on fear and faith and God and how they all interact. I am an INFJ personalitywise and so feelings play a huge role inside me and how i function. I am on top of the world when my feelings are aligned with God and feeling at peace with Him being present and in control and all. Problem erupts when for whatever reason, my feelings change and He can't be felt, it feels like He is hidden or gone. Anxiety happens then. But of course God is present as He always is. Try getting my irrational thoughts fueled by distraught feelings to buy that though.

I am thrilled God is Sovereign. I am more thrilled He uses His Sovereignty in grace and not anger.

Lamenting to God

2009-09-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

This is directed to God but in a way it can be read.

O God, i am more than thankful how the shock procedure cured the abnormal beating of my heart. So many prayers from people,even people i do not know. I cannot express the gratitude enough!!!! I have so many wonderings in my heart though God. You are Almighty and Father of all creation. Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. All is under your control as it ever has been since the Beginning. I know and believe You are exactly who You declare yourself to be in Your Word Holy Father, why then have i struggled in mind,heart and action to live it out??? I have sought to pursue Jesus and imitate Him in living life, but have gone down deadends and wrong ways so much over and over again. You have much mystery and i can't imagine how it would be if You didn't. I seek after answers or fixes that just are not going to be given by You in the way i want them and i wonder ....why do I persist????

You know me completely, inside and out. You know my feelings of frustration over all the times I have felt inadequate to act as I should. How i have felt like I was weaker than a boy or man should be and failed to live up to what i thought my fathers expectations would be of me if he had lived. I don't have an answer for why I have let fear and lack of confidence in myself be a constant issue Father God. I know i want to leave it with You and learn what i am to do, You know how it goes round and round my head.

You know how sex became an issue Dear God. A fantasyland where feelings of insecurity and unattractiveness, immaturity and pain of rejection get magically swept away. No wonder sexual issues have beguiled us for ages o God considering the allure they make but never satisfy. Guilt and shame over struggling with such an issue which is so blatantly wrong and socially disapproved weighs on the heart, somehow even after having confessed and been given forgiveness. The addictive nature of it is what keeps the guilt and shame as You know O God. Cannot complete and total turning in repentance happen??? Wanting so badly to be one who serves You and wants to live loving others makes it that much worse when the giving in happens yet again.

Thank You for always being present and wantin gto hear me God. i pray You will lead me to take in Your love and grace as You desire for me too, so i can rest in You as i did while You healed my heart through the doctors skill. Amen.

I wrote this in this way to share my self in a transparent way and one which some may identify with. God is good and remains so no matter what i am struggling with. Just good to share it as the Psalmists did. Hope to hear thoughts from any who choose to share.

God is Greater

2009-09-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

You can fill in the rest in so many ways, God is greater than??? Everything actually, epsecially our own stumbling and bumbling to comprehend and follow Him. So much diversity here in blogland on grasping Him and growing in relationship with Him. Kathy Escobar has a great post about faith and doubt over at her place, *the carnival in my head*. She articulates how doubt can and does play a crucial role in bolstering our faith as opposed to decreasing it, and how faith is different than believing in the way we are told we should believe. Wow!!!!

I am wrestling with fear as i have for what seems like ever, and with God helping me in the process, as He always does even when i am not aware of it. I have had strong tendencies to listen closely to authority figures alot, especially ministers and teachers who seem to have solid answers in what true discipleship is. The dilemma occurs when several of those who are deemed authority figures clash in their own views of what constitutes *true discipleship* so then what am i to do??? Not trusting my own ability to think for myself and discover Gods ways for me have been crucial at times in causing me to shrink back or push ahead in some of the waves lifes ocean brings.

This struggle is like 2 in one. On one hand, I know i committed my life to Jesus Christ, I trust He is who He claims to be, that the Bible is His Word and is reliable, that His love, grace, forgiveness and holiness are constant and eternal. I believe He understands my own and everyones strengths and weaknesses and leads us in life. On the other hand, I fear that my understanding is flawed and I fail to believe and obey as i am needed to in order to make my salvation sure. I try to hide from challenges which may stretch me and open me to pain and wounds i do not want to experience. I question whether Gods love is unconditional or can i somehow think or do anything to cause me to be left out.

This in a nutshell describes my battle with fear,especially fear of death. What i love about what kathy wrote is that God remains there amidst all of this, even when I might be totally apprehensive of being accepted by Him. I also think being able to verbalize these thoughts and feelings in a public manner are very helpful and healing because it shows vulnerability and willingness to risk whatever reactions may come from other people. The psalmists lamented to God throughout their writings, and much of it was done in anger,fear,despair and a sense of hopelessness. BUT, after expressing all these things, they were able to find hope, encouragement and peace which seemed so far away before and during their sharing.

Fear may be around always, in one way or another. That does not mean it has to have a stranglehold on me. Thank you God for so many friends and others who have shown that to be true. Thank you God that You are greater than fear, and greater than my own limited way to handle it within myself, and You are always there to turn to, even when I may feel and think i am all by myself.

Twists and Turns

2009-09-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a subject will not let you go. I guess fear is that subject for me. Maybe i will exhaust almost all possible angles of looking at it and finally be done. i can hope can't I??? Lol. I wanted to follow-up on some of what i wrote in my last post. There are so many differing ways fear is dealt with no wonder it seems endless.

I have thought of the origins of fear affecting me, both genetic,environmental and cultural. All of these areas played a part as i believe they do to some extent for all of us, some greater than others. My twist and turn is a kind of paradox. Fear basically stems from the unknown or from some kind of hurt which could happen, be that punishment, pain or abandonment. Death is the great unknown since none of us have come back to tell what happens. Death is an enemy which Gods Word declares itself and hell is the worst and unescapable of all punishments so it would naturally engender fear as a logical extension of what it involves. God is love and Jesus is the only One to resurrect as well as give the gift of eternal life and total freedom from punishment for always. This is perfect antidote for fear right??? Trouble is,for me, my mind finds ways to doubt and worry I am definitely within Jesus arms for certain, especially when the calvinist doctrine creeps in my thinking of there being only a chosen *elect* whom Jesus came to save.

I have a book called *The Thomas Factor* by gary habermas which is an excellent exposition on the whole notion of doubt and faith. He details in his years of counseling and pastoring how many believers struggled over feeling like they had lost their salvation or committed the unpardonable sin or somehow just were outside Gods grasp of them. The fact that so many who are genuine believers in Christ who suffer these doubts serves as a strange comfort to me, because it shows me i am not alone in it. Another comfort and help is to realize that my own feelings, whatever they may be, are not the determiner of my acceptance by Jesus and God. This is HUGE because faith and feeling are inextricably tied together, whether some say they are not. Just how we are designed.

This leads to another twist in facing fear. Who Jesus is, who God is, plays a large factor in handling fear. If They are lacking at all in any way, shape or form, and if They can decide on amy basis that whoever They consider to be unacceptable to Them, then fear has no bounds really. This is why the Bible and its trustworthiness as Gods Word is so very crucial. If the Bible cannot be relied upon, and the Bible purports to be Gods revelation of Himself and Jesus, well then how can They be trusted??? Hope my thought and logical conclusions are clear there.

So, in running all that through my mind, i am helped to see fear as more manageble and to find ways which may be helpful to deal with on a strictly physiological level, which will impact my emotions as well. Love to hear all thoughts on this as always!!!

A Lil of My Craziness

2009-09-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Tracking back over how I became who i am was again inspired by dana at biscottibrain, as well as my friend becky who said we all have a story. I have been thinking of where the origins of my dealing with fear the way i do began. I know I saw some scary movies when i was very young, and had the high sensitivity I mentioned before. My ears were super sensitized to loud sounds. I had to leave places where the sound was too loud because it made my head hurt. I think this may have been why I was so scared of a rollercoaster, the dips and drops just my body feel out of sync. So glad I was able to handle the matterhorn ride at disneyland though lol.

I wonder if I really let this fear ecome expanded when i got older and read scriptures or heard sermons and teaching that i had a reason to be afraid and to overcome it. I know i have always had no trouble vocalizing my fear, but usually didn't get responses of anyone else sharing if they had fear. Mostly they would tell me it would go away, or they had a peace about it or just really not mention it. I have such a tendency to let my mind secondguess in a neverending spiral. This is where I get all messed up, i begin thinking i should have no fear but then a thought of something catastrophic comes to mind and i feel a sense of fear so I get caught up in beating myself up over having fear and i can just get drowned inside my own thoughts for who knows how long.

I wonder if it is a trait of introverted highly sensitive people to become caught up in their own head like that??? Maybe its a case of ocd. Why do i have this idea i should be totally free of fear??? Why do i have this idea God needs to somehow supernaturally take it away and make it be gone forever then i will be ok. Anyone else have these kind of crazy thoughts about death and fear??? Just hoping backtracking over old ground can refresh me in dealing with it now.

Time & Shoelaces

2009-09-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

I rediscovered a blog friend I hadn't seen in a long while. Biscottibrain. She always had very transparent posts and I saw she was doing a series of looking back at her life, seemed like a bucket list in present time. All she shared spoke to me deeply of realizing Gods unlimited love and discipline both, as He ceaselessly maintains His presence, often in unusual or mysterious ways.

I had a very hard time learning to tie my shoelaces and tell time when i was little. i don't think I really got the hang of it until i was 7 and in 2nd grade. I felt very selfconscious about this. i used to get called out of class to go to the special teacher who helped me learn to tell time. I had other things that stuck out. i stuttered,had hearing difficulty and flat feet which caused me to waddle when i ran. Kids are not diplomatic about noticing these things, they can pick on them pretty harshly. Just the way kids are, like chickens who have a pecking order. The weakest one recieves roughest treatment from the rest. I am not writing this out of selfpity, just as a way to understand the dynamics involved. I think I am one of those who fall under the category of highly sensitive people. Our nervous system as well as our emotional makeup are wired a lil tighter than others. In understanding this it helps me to realize I was among others who understood my inner realities of how i experienced life happening.

I want to take the lessons learned from my struggle to tie my shoes and tell time. Fear has been the huge monkey on my back as i have shared so constantly on here. God has whittled it down moment by moment, helping me to face it in ways i would not have chosen. I hope to keep moving forward in handling fear as He helps me. I really took a message of hope from biscottibrains blog. She shared how often she found herself fighting fears,anger,and just her own resistance to change or growth, and yet she found God to be with her always even when she felt a total failure. I am not quoting her verbatim, lol, but that is a very real message i got from her writings. I hope to maintain that spirit of hope and willingness to be stretched as God sees fit, even when I'm feeling so out of it. It is so cool to have a place to share so honestly and even get feedback from anyone and everyone. God is good!!!!

Stuff

2009-09-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Everybody has different reasons for blogging. Some like to share information on all manner of subjects, some like to be humorous, some political, some theological,some personal. Many are a mishmash of all of these and more. I began blogging after seeing a few people i had met on a christian recovery forum, as it looked like a great outlet for expression as well as gaining contact with people all over the world. It has proven to be that and so much more over the last 5 years.

I tend to write very personally on here, adding some tidbits of other stuff every now and then. I find writing allows me to share things in my heart and soul that I just don't have the time or safeness to share in face to face life. I wonder in my mind alot what goes on internally with people as they write their blogs. Do they agonize over whether they share too much info, or too little??? Do they worry about how they come across to people, even though the people are relatively anonymous??? Do they wonder if they really have anything worthwhile to say and that would be of interest to anyone,let alone warrant a comment??? These are a few of the varied ruminations that run through my head as I type.

We exist on a huge continuum as living beings. The top of the ladder are those who have it all together in the best way possible and are as free as can be from the angst that life possesses so often. The bottom of the ladder are those who have hit rockbottom and have almost no ability to live life in any functional way at all. We all are somewhere on that ladder, and we move up and down depending how life hits us and we respond. I think it is a constant challenge to fight against being consumed by our own imaginations and our own selves, thinking we are isolated and alone even though we are surrounded by people sharing much of the same trials and tribulations as we are. Another struggle is to lose ourselves in being involved in as many things as possible, all to avoid dealing with issues of pain and loss that we find too difficult to face.

When I am around people, be they family, friends or acquaintances, i find it easier to let go of the inner demons that hit me when i am alone. Whoever first said we are all our own worst enemy definitely knew of what they spoke. I find being around people within the blogosphere is also more freeing. To read,respond and have interaction with people, even those with whom we may vehemently disagree, is comforting and restorative to me. Amazes me still how I can find a connection with people who I would have never thought possible if not for the internet. That is my stuff for now.