Dear Sun,
Today I came to the conclusion that you do not exist. I have not seen you in many days and do not see how you can even be real at this point. It has been raining and stormy for so long and I haven't seen any sign of you. This storm is crazy! How do you expect me to believe in you when you allow things like this to happen? I see no light. I feel no warmth. The roads are flooded, there is mud everywhere, it's cold, dreary, and honestly that proves that you aren't real. It can't be both ways! There can't be a Sun that is full of warmth and light when all this other crap is all I see. If you were real you'd dry up this place! You'd give us some light! There wouldn't even be such things as clouds or storms! So, you might as well just forget about me ever believing in you!
Sincerely,
Me
Dear Me,
I am still here.
Sincerely,
The Sun
Monday, February 15, 2010
OK, I'm Listening
We had a really great service at Boys Town on Sunday. One of the other female family teachers was speaking and one of her points really struck me. She was talking about possession and how when we accept Jesus into our hearts he possesses us. She used a really funny example of Ghostrider and how Nicolas Cage is possessed by the Ghostrider every night to go and do things. She was saying how being possessed by Jesus is like that...only different. :) So here this woman is on stage being totally open and real...holding nothing back for God. As she spoke, she would just start singing to emphasis something or let out a scream to explain a point. It was an amazing representation of the Freedom that comes with being a Christian. She didn't seem to care if all the kids thought she was crazy, she just loves Jesus and wants them to understand how utterly amazing his love is and how much he did for us to save us.
So, yesterday started out kind of funny anyway. I went to bed on Saturday night with God having told me that I was to get up and go to church with the boys for Robert so he could have a little bit of time in the morning. At the time, it sounded like a nice idea of something to do for him for Valentines Day, but when He (God...not Robert) woke me up at 8 o'clock to get up and get ready I was not as enthused. I got up to use the restroom and had completely talked myself out of it as I had achy hips and back and was still really tired from not sleeping all that great. So I crawled back into bed and laid down. The bed was really comfortable then and I felt like I could sleep for another couple of hours. Then..."you know...you are not listening to me. I told you to get up and go to church this morning for your husband and that is where you need to be." But I'm so tired...I don't want to go. "Get up...I'll help you wake up."
So, after 10 minutes of this back and forth, I get up and roll out of bed begrudgingly. Then hobble over to the bathroom to take a shower. Since they just put in a new hot water heater last week, we of course have very little hot water (it's a BT thing). So I turn the knob all the way over to the hottest setting trying to stay warm...to no avail. At the time I was NOT saying, "thank you Jesus for sending cold water to wake me up." BUT I'm sure he was giggling up there all the same. I did, however, feel quite awake when I turned off the water shivering and scrambled to try to dry off quickly. :) Needless to say, Robert was pretty happy to have me fill in for him so he could have a little bit of time and thought the story of how I got up was pretty funny.
People often times ask how I know that God is real OR how I can believe in a loving God that allows people to suffer so much pain on Earth. Aside from the fact that I know Him and talk to Him pretty regularly and can personally attest to His absolute existence, I also see how much we grow as people through pain. Also, God is outside of time, so he knows the end of the story already. There is so much that is going to happen that we have no clue about, be He does. You can go through the Bible and see time and time again where he tells us what is going to happen and then later it happens. There are even things that are written in the Bible about what was going to happen later that has happened, but the actual event was never written in the Bible because it happened after the Bible was finished. So, He knows what is to come. He knows who is going to be spending all eternity with him. We don't. All we can know is about this tiny amount of time that we get to spend here during our lifetime, which in the grand scheme of things isn't very long. Yet, we kick our feet and cry to the God of this Universe that He is unfair and unjust...just like our little children do when they are angry that we took their toy away after they hit someone with it..."that's mine...you can't take it...it's not fair." And God looks down at us and says, "Really...is it yours?" I think that Job 38-40 in the Bible explains this so well.
http://biblestudy.crosswalk.com/mybst/default.aspx?type=bible&translation=NIV&bookcode=ps&bookname=Psalms&chapterid=119&verseid=45
Another thing that the sermon yesterday pointed out was that God loves us so much that he was willing to become human and suffer too. So we can't say that we have this illusive God who doesn't understand our suffering or doesn't hear our cries because he came down here as Jesus and experienced everything that we experience. He suffered the most excruciating death possible here on Earth and at the end said of his executioners, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."
So, yesterday started out kind of funny anyway. I went to bed on Saturday night with God having told me that I was to get up and go to church with the boys for Robert so he could have a little bit of time in the morning. At the time, it sounded like a nice idea of something to do for him for Valentines Day, but when He (God...not Robert) woke me up at 8 o'clock to get up and get ready I was not as enthused. I got up to use the restroom and had completely talked myself out of it as I had achy hips and back and was still really tired from not sleeping all that great. So I crawled back into bed and laid down. The bed was really comfortable then and I felt like I could sleep for another couple of hours. Then..."you know...you are not listening to me. I told you to get up and go to church this morning for your husband and that is where you need to be." But I'm so tired...I don't want to go. "Get up...I'll help you wake up."
So, after 10 minutes of this back and forth, I get up and roll out of bed begrudgingly. Then hobble over to the bathroom to take a shower. Since they just put in a new hot water heater last week, we of course have very little hot water (it's a BT thing). So I turn the knob all the way over to the hottest setting trying to stay warm...to no avail. At the time I was NOT saying, "thank you Jesus for sending cold water to wake me up." BUT I'm sure he was giggling up there all the same. I did, however, feel quite awake when I turned off the water shivering and scrambled to try to dry off quickly. :) Needless to say, Robert was pretty happy to have me fill in for him so he could have a little bit of time and thought the story of how I got up was pretty funny.
People often times ask how I know that God is real OR how I can believe in a loving God that allows people to suffer so much pain on Earth. Aside from the fact that I know Him and talk to Him pretty regularly and can personally attest to His absolute existence, I also see how much we grow as people through pain. Also, God is outside of time, so he knows the end of the story already. There is so much that is going to happen that we have no clue about, be He does. You can go through the Bible and see time and time again where he tells us what is going to happen and then later it happens. There are even things that are written in the Bible about what was going to happen later that has happened, but the actual event was never written in the Bible because it happened after the Bible was finished. So, He knows what is to come. He knows who is going to be spending all eternity with him. We don't. All we can know is about this tiny amount of time that we get to spend here during our lifetime, which in the grand scheme of things isn't very long. Yet, we kick our feet and cry to the God of this Universe that He is unfair and unjust...just like our little children do when they are angry that we took their toy away after they hit someone with it..."that's mine...you can't take it...it's not fair." And God looks down at us and says, "Really...is it yours?" I think that Job 38-40 in the Bible explains this so well.
http://biblestudy.crosswalk.com/mybst/default.aspx?type=bible&translation=NIV&bookcode=ps&bookname=Psalms&chapterid=119&verseid=45
Another thing that the sermon yesterday pointed out was that God loves us so much that he was willing to become human and suffer too. So we can't say that we have this illusive God who doesn't understand our suffering or doesn't hear our cries because he came down here as Jesus and experienced everything that we experience. He suffered the most excruciating death possible here on Earth and at the end said of his executioners, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."
Saturday, February 13, 2010
This is a great song...
Sunrise by Nicole Nordeman
If I had the chance
To go back again
Take a different road, bear a lighter load
Tell an easy story
I would walk away
With my yesterdays
And I would not trade what is broken for beauty only
Every valley
Every bitter chill
Made me ready to climb back up the hill
And find that . . .
You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight?
You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise
There's a moment when
Faith caves in
There's a time when every soul is certain God is gone
But every shadow is evidence of sun
And every tomorrow holds out hope for us
For every one of us
You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight?
You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise
You alone will shine
You alone can resurrect this heart of mine
You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight?
You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise
You are sunrise
If I had the chance
To go back again
Take a different road, bear a lighter load
Tell an easy story
I would walk away
With my yesterdays
And I would not trade what is broken for beauty only
Every valley
Every bitter chill
Made me ready to climb back up the hill
And find that . . .
You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight?
You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise
There's a moment when
Faith caves in
There's a time when every soul is certain God is gone
But every shadow is evidence of sun
And every tomorrow holds out hope for us
For every one of us
You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight?
You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise
You alone will shine
You alone can resurrect this heart of mine
You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight?
You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise
You are sunrise
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)