Ah, yes, another birthday. I have cupcakes ready to make this morning in memory of a blonde hair, blue eyed little girl that should be running through my house, proclaiming that she is 6 years old today! The siblings are making birthday cards, in anticipation of folding them ever so tightly to stick into a helium balloon, all to let them go in the sky, heavenward, in hopes that Sarah will know that not only is she loved by her Creator, but that she is loved by us, here, still on earth.... with earthly sorrows, seeking out true human joy that one day, we will be with her in heaven.
A promise made by a King.
Not just any king. The King of kings, our Creator, Savior, our Bridegroom.
So many things have been running through my mind lately. I don't even know how to organize it all in one blog post... but as always, I'll do my best.
I've been thinking....
I wish I could go back to being myself.
What is myself?
How to reach my retreat.
Why am I having such a hard time feeling a self worth?
Why am I letting a situation define who I've been these past several months?
Truths about what true church is.
Resenting a lot of practice of modern churches.
Homeschooling my children.
How do I teach my children what the Scriptures say, and how to show love to people, no matter the different cultures and beliefs. .
True evangelism.
Missing my dad, how I wish I could pick at his brain right now.
Feeling for the first time, really, that I'm "fatherless". Something I've always been able to overcome in the past.
Missing old friends that I so wish I could talk to about all this.
All these things and more... have been wandering in the desert of my brain. Some of them, through reading and studying are coming clear. But there are some that I'm still chewing endlessly on. As if, I'm not to be chewing on them at all....
I like to think about things until I come to a resolve about it. If a new thought comes into my mind, I go into this hyper-drive, where I think and think, I go into my "moral warehouse", I study and read, and think some more. I don't stop until I've come to some kind of conclusion as to what I believe about that given subject.
All this to say.. I've been on this quest, this study. I've been swimming in books, including studying the Bible and what other theologians have to say about it. I've been in this deep thought process, that makes my "dark horse" side very visible, as soon as you bring these subjects up.
A part of me enjoys being in such a study mode. It brings my focus off this earthly form, into the spiritual realm, but that's where it gets tricky. Opening up these doors, always gives God the chance to truly speak to me and we become closer, but at the same time, it gives satan a chance to tempt me further into a spiral of worthlessness.
Let me bring you some of my thought process... these are, of course, only highlights... I could probably write many books on my explanations of how I got to these conclusions.. of course, there is a Book already written :)
My self worth. I quickly believe that I am worthless, and I don't know why I've become so gullible, but I know I need to stop thinking these things and hold to verses that I can cling to. I am of true value to Him, my Beloved. I need to remember our engagement, our communion. God has given me certain gifts that enable me to worship Him and show love to others. Those gifts are my retreats. I need to remember this as well.
Church. Fellow believers coming together to study together, pray together, play together, practice together, sing together, work together, support and encourage each other, hold each other accountable. These to me are the essentials. You can't take one out.
There is a modern mode, that seems to be creeping through America, that is taking away the play or being legalistic about it's practice, or legalistic about it's singing. Where there's little accountability, little support, if any at all. Where there's concern for numbers, instead of concern for the individual. Where pastors and leader are being used as crutches for parents and it's allowed. Where the exhaustion of ministry is about advertisement and events and programs, and not about staying up through the night with a family that just lost a their child, or about coming together to feed the family that is working so hard, but can't make ends meet, or sitting with the elderly that have been abandoned by their family, or sitting in that parking lot trying to convince a precious teenager that she is worth so much more and that she shouldn't commit suicide. This modern mode is expecting people to come to them, and it's not going out to the people that need the hope of Jesus and after showing them Jesus, inviting them to come and fellowship.
I could go on and on. Trust me.
I'm in the middle of reading this book called The Chosen. It's about 2 different kinds of Jewish families. I like reading articles and literature from the Jewish perspective cause they always seem to pick up on something that I didn't think about. I take them with a grain of salt because I am, after all, a Christian, but the culture and their practice is so fascinating to me. There is some stuff that isn't in our Bibles that they practice, that I'm careful to find, but when you look at the stuff that is in our same Bible, I'm convicted of my own practice. How we raise and teach our children. How we guard ourselves, our marriages, our friendships. I want to study the Bible like they study their Torah. I want to teach my children diligently, talk of the Scriptures, like they teach their children and talk of it and debate it out. Just because I am not a Jew, doesn't mean that we shouldn't learn from them. Any Christian should realize that our Christianity has strong Jewish backgrounds, whether you're a Jew or not. Their culture holds a certain key to deeper understanding what Jesus was talking about when he'd say certain things to the Jews, the very Words that we study for our own lives. For example: Communion. Some don't know this, but when Jews, (in that time, and possibly still practiced today, but I'm not sure) would agree to be married, basically a proposal, they'd take a cup of wine, and both would drink from it, sealing their engagement. They would be considered a husband and wife, except for the "physical aspect"(that doesn't happen until the end when the feast takes place). It was a seal of a commitment, a seal of a covenant. When Jesus spoke about our relationship, he would always use a bridegroom and a bride as an example. We are the bride. When He sat down with His disciples, He broke bread, for His earthly body was to be sacrificed and then dipped that sacrifice into the shared cup of wine to resemble the covenant between Him and them. He explained this covenant is for all who believe. He wanted us to do this, and to do it often, to remember that we are, through His sacrifice and by our agreement of drinking from such a cup, His betrothed. We are His bride, His beloved.
" I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine." Song of Solomon 6:3a
No bride is worthless.
