Tonight I'm trying to head off to bed early, but it's not working. MB3 is working with someone else (besides Hubby) tomorrow and needs a lunch packed by 6:15am. Have you ever had to pack a full meal and two snacks for an 18-year-old boy who is working on a roof all day? It's quite a task believe me. However, I have all but the sandwiches ready to go already, so I won't have to think too hard at 6 in the morning. And then I'll have an hour before I have to pack DrummerDude's lunch. Think it's enough time for a nap? :)
Then, at noon, Hubby and I and GuitarGeek head out to help with a conference-- it's a yearly event that we've participated in for several years now. We will be taking a sound system and our instruments, and will be playing on the worship team tomorrow night and Saturday. I'm looking forward to it.
I've been a little anxious about my wardrobe for the weekend, but not for my usual reasons. Usually, I'm uptight because I don't know how to come up with something dressy out of my limited wardrobe. But this year, I have lots of choices! It's just been a matter of what the weather will be. Hubby just checked the forecast, and now I know: dress for spring tomorrow (sunny, high temp of nearly 60), and winter on Saturday (4-7 inches of snow!) That's spring in Nebraska for you!
I have a lot of things I've been thinking about lately, as I mentioned the last time I posted, and I've written quite a few posts in my head. Sorry you've missed out on all that. Some of it's been pretty deep and soul-searching. I've agonized over doctrine, and other questions of faith. I've been surprised at anger (my own), sorrowful over selfishness (yes, my own), annoyed at pet peeves. If I'd been writing all those things down it would not have been a very pretty place here the last couple of weeks; although, it might have been interesting. (More interesting than say, no posts at all?)
Well, if you'd like to start a conversation, go to No Longer Quivering and take a look around. One of the blog writers is from my home state, and I used to read the paper she edited, as well as the columns she wrote. Her recent sudden 180 degree turnaround, away from God, has been quite a shock to me (and is one of the things that's been on my mind.) After you read her story, I'd love to have you come back here and tell me what you think.
I probably won't be around till Monday, or maybe Sunday, so you have plenty of time to decide what to say!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Still Here, Still Thinking--Wanna Join Me?
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4 comments:
Reading that site was a bit like watching a bad wreck, complete with the check around to verify your status and gratitude that you weren't in it.
I could say some things about it that would probably get me in trouble, and may end up doing so. Maybe that's why my faith survives. I've also always done my own thinking, to the extent that I would have never permitted myself to be drug down into a situation that fostered the denial of the only thing that I've found in this world that's worth using as a foundation. Me is the truth leads to me is the way leads to me is the death, one way or the other; the psychologists call one form of it sociopathy. That's what guided my betrothed "protector", and that's why I left. If I remain alone, that's eminently preferrable to that torment that serves no purpose.
I perceived a God that filled sky, earth and within (as my Native friends would say) very early in life. I also saw around me a population saturated with arrogance and cruelty, some of them standing under a cross that spoke of humility and service as they disseminated it. I've avoided the apostasy route that some friends have taken over this contradiction by the fact that I refused to put perfume on a pig and accept that as the the best that God (that particular God, anyway) could do. I was determined to find earth men that walked as sky men, even if they did look like they were going backward (as I again borrow from my Native friends). I'm now quite spoiled to be among the most loving and mutually commited group of people calling themselves a church that I could ever imagine, and it was so much worth the wait.
God doesn't take prisoners, and is in the process of gradually remolding those that sign on with Him at whatever rate they'll permit. Subsequently, I don't believe that the end product is trod-upon property, devoid of life or opinion. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there should be liberty. If bondage is emerging, something's gone horribly wrong. I have no firsthand basis from which to assess home school groups, or the experience of having larger numbers of children that I could emotionally, financially, or physically manage (since I stopped after one, thinking that any more than that would be hard to run and hide with as the abuse worsened). I already stated that I left the abusive marriage. He had plainly stated that he had no clue who God was at that point, and I Cor. 7:15 that permits me to leave a non-believer that wants no part of me practically glowed up from the page of my Bible as my frantically praying friends beseeched God to get through to me quick before he finished me and my child. I was fighting a considerable case of guilt over "God hates divorce". The truth is that He's not fond of destruction, either. Paul allowed himself to be lowered over a wall in a basket rather than going and submitting to the appointed authority that was out to murder him deceptively (and how did the holy men end up deceptive, by the way?), which permitted a good share of the New Testament to be completed after that incident through his undead auspices.
My first challenge to convention was to refuse to be confirmed at 13 in the midst of a bunch of soul-strangling torment from my churchmates and Sunday school books that told me that our practices were tradition-tested, despite the concerns that Jesus had about tradition undoing the word of God in men's lives. I took a very long route from there through the personal discovery of some other events in the Book that were denied by the tradition that kept me alive when there was little outward support. I repeat: It's entirely real, and quite self-sustaining, regardless of who gets up and quits. It taught me that I may need to be an island at times. I've found to my sorrow, moreso lately, that what Jesus said about the way being narrow and not-much-found is true. It's lonely, but I would rather stand alone on ground that doesn't shake than continuously trying to figure out how to keep the madding crowd around me appeased. There is sort of a fluidity of nature about what you have to do to stay in good with them, unfortunately.
This actually also sounds a bit pretentious, which is why there's such a necessity that isn't finite within any one of us. The earth man is always trying to save himself at anyone, or everyone, else's expense. The ultimate sky man who walked in such a backward-looking way told us that we had to lose our life to save it, and be last to be first. In the end, after we've affirmed the truth, we have to remember that it didn't come from us and that we don't sustain it. He has to fill our within as He also takes from His perspective the sky and defines the earth for us, lest we let those who may have a shorter sight guide us along to the ditch that they themselves can't see from a modest height.
Wow. I can't imagine my life going like that.
The discovery of and intimate acquaintance with the loving God I have met in the last two years, after a lifetime of serving the image presented to me in the church, has made me into a new person. The loss of that acquaintance would be devastating, and I am sure would leave me with no anchor of hope in a very confusing and hurting world.
How sad that she willingly chose to listen to her atheist uncle. Yet we are given free will to make the choices we deem appropriate for our lives. We can't impose our views or opinions on others, despite our preference, neither does God impose His will on us.
Blessings to you, and I hope you have (had) a wonderful weekend.
tm
That is sad. I don't know what to think, really, about her conversion to atheism.
Well... I dropped a comment there, and we'll see what happens. What a sad state of affairs: fleeing trials by celebrating nihilism! (It's a bit like "curing" a headache by cutting one's head off.)
It sounds as if Vyckie is really using a "feelings-based", "follow your heart" approach to things... which is only good if your heart is *right*! (See Jeremiah 17:9 for God's commentary on that.) I.e. if we should only follow our heart when our heart is right, and our heart is only right when it's in harmony with God's Will, then shouldn't we really be following God's Will, and not our heart at all? It would save us so much of this, "This is how I feel, so that's what I'll do!" stuff that train-wrecks so many lives...
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