Friday, January 30, 2009

Philippians 1:3

Back in the Word again lately, which is good. I'd been distracted and am already prone to wandering. Makes me think of one of my favorite hymns:

"Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above."

Anyway, I just wanted to share Philippians 1:3 with you because that's how I feel about all of you who have walked through this journey with me.

Oh, you thought I was going to post the verse? Ha! Go look it up. ;)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Broken

Everytime I find myself broken, I sit and thank God for being broken because it brings me to a point where I must rely completely on Him.

And yet I never end up staying that way.

I get up out of the hospital bed and leave AMA, my fresh wounds not even healing yet. And then I have the nerve to say, "Why won't God fix this? He must not love me."


Why do we do this?

Sunday, May 11, 2008

You Are What You Eat

John 6:43-71

The old saying "you are what you eat" applies here. Jesus, of course, was not referring to His actual flesh (and we'll stay out of the transubstantiation arguments here). He's talking about partaking in his death, the life that his flesh and blood, rent and spilled, gives us. But I love the idea of "you are what you eat" here. Because if we metaphorically eat Jesus, we DO become more like Him over time. The more we take in Christ, the more we become Christ-like. Lord, help us to do so.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Monday, April 28, 2008

Sunday School

One of the things that irks me about traditional churches is Sunday School. I don't really see the point of it. If the teaching is good in-service (and ours certainly is, yay), why do we go for an hour of lukewarm, out-of-a-book lessons? It's like having a crappy burger from McDonald's and then a giant feast!

The other thing that bugs me about SS is the whole age-segregation thing. I've witnessed this in both the Brethren and a few Baptist churches so I know it crosses denominational lines. Who decided that classes should be age-segregated? What inevitably happens is that I don't "fit" anywhere.

When my husband and I first had children, we were in our 20s. We certainly didn't fit in the 20s class because most of them were single or newly married with no plans for children. We were OK with that, but the church determined that we should really not be in that class. So they bumped us up to the 30s. Except even in the 30s, the people who were there had babies/infants or no children. They didn't like that we had preschoolers. So...we got bumped to the 40s. Except the 40s didn't really welcome us once they found out how old we were!

My experiences since my separation and divorce have been kinda similar. If I go to my age-appropriate Sunday School class, I'm in with a bunch of married couples! Usually the prescribed lessons touch on marital intimacy or something I don't want to hear about. So what's a girl to do?

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Things to chew on

I've been reading "Stuff Christians Like" which is a hilarious blog by aspiring author Jon Acuff. Most of it has me rolling but he snuck a serious one in yesterday and I've been thinking on it since then. It's worth a read...and then go read all the other entries! ;)

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/04/167-believing-in-calendars.html

Thursday, April 17, 2008

ADD and Bible study

I wish I could stick to a routine of studying my Bible each and every day. I know the benefit but I can't seem to stick to it. And it's not a whole "I don't want to read the Bible so I'm going to pretend I don't have the time" thing. It's that I start to do it and then forget. Or, I guess, I can confess another reason I don't do it.

I misplace my Bible.

By "misplace" I mean...lose. Big time lose.

What happens is that I pick it up to read it and then the phone rings or someone knocks on the door or a rabid squirrel comes down my nonexistent chimney and holds me hostage until I feed him some Nut N' Honey cereal, and then I put my Bible down somewhere to take care of the task at hand. And while I'm in the middle of taking care of that, something else happens (the squirrel's insanely angry jilted ex-squirrel girlfriend shows up ala Jerry Springer) and I forget what I was doing and soon 3 days have passed and I still can't remember what I did with my Bible.

Which, I guess, would be frustrating if I even remembered for more than 3 seconds that I was looking for it. Heh.