Its Been a While...

Lately I have found that there is so little I have to say...if you know me then you might find that a little unusual. I'm that person that when I learn something I want you to know it too. It excites me to share with others to learn and to teach but lately there is nothing I've been particularly excited about. We call this a slump...

The good thing about slumps though is that they give to the time to reflect and to maybe stop searching the outside and gather information about what's going on inside. Some people while talking extensively about the things they know never take a second to reveal very much information about themselves. I am one of those people. I would like to say that I use to be but the truth is even though I'm much more open than I was some years ago I still hate to talk about myself. I am certainly not saying to be some sort of narcissist and a little humility goes a long way but in a relationship whether it be friendship, familial or what have you never divulging things about who you really are, how you feel or simply what you like will become a stumbling block to any healthy relationship. As people earn your trust you have to show that you really do trust them. Anyone will tell you just how important communication is and that without being honest with the people around you and more importantly with yourself is only a set up for disaster. So while I haven't had much to say lately and these words are certainly nothing new they are my thoughts of the day. Take them in or leave them on the page, that is up to you.

Totally Naked

Have you ever had that desire to completely bare your soul to the world to stand thoroughly unclothed in the midst of people who desire to dress you in all the wrong colors? While I know for sure society cannot handle the person completely unfettered  in every area of life, still I wonder how much the person can handle never being free for just a moment from the corset of conformity. Not for a moment do I speak of being free from morals or doing those things that are right, but for the person who has to care about the things they don’t care about or can’t feel the things they know they feel then you may just understand what I mean. If you’ve ever read the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin you know just how far this line of thought can go, farther than I certainly think is acceptable for the person living outside of a novel or Lifetime drama. It is true, however, that there are moments in life, or maybe just in mine, where you see that people know you for what they want to see and there is no one who knows you the way you wish to be. It is to my comfort and my conviction that at least I know that there is One who sees all of me. Funny how frightening that exposure becomes. There may be moments we wish to bare everything, but once you’re naked you can’t help but search for something to put on.

 

For those who haven’t read the book, read the summary: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/awakening/summary.html

Those things we just can’t do…

Isaiah 30:15
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…”

Jesus often showed that the proper response to sin is repentance and yet in and of ourselves we have not the power to repent and the forgiveness we receive we do not earn ourselves.

"It is the glory of God that he can do all this without any injury to the person who is forgiven. It sometimes happens that if a man has offended you and you forgive him again and again, he may thereby become hardened in his sin; but the Lord’s sweet way of covering sin is one which always melts and changes the heart. Sin is never so heartily hated as when it is covered by the blood of Christ. No man does ever thoroughly loathe sin till he has seen it put away in Christ; but when he has seen Jesus put it way by his own griefs and death, then he really hates the sin that made the Redeemer mourn and nailed him to the tree. It is the glory of God that he can cover sin in such a fashion as this, so as not to injure the offender whom he forgives."- CH Spurgeon

It is the Holy Spirit that works in us, that captivates us and that changes us. Where we once were blackened by sin, with faces like that of death, ‘til Christ came and made us white with faces bright with life.

You are all fair, my love; there is no spot in you

Song of Solomon 4:7

 

Is it not amazing how our God can say this to His church! He can say to His people that there is no spot, no flaw, no blemish because I your First Love have taken them all away. We are not blameless because we never sin but we are made clean through the blood of Christ. Isn’t it amazing that even more difficult to clean blood off of an article of clothing is it to clean the blood of Christ off of His people. It cannot be washed away, scrubbed away or taken away! The cleansing power of the blood of Jesus for a believer is worth more than every ounce of blood in the body of that believer. God loves His church and for it He has shed His blood there may be no spot and He can call us beautiful!

Awareness

Around the world there are millions of people held in slavery, whether it be sexual slavery, adult forced labor or child labor. There are people who have been kidnapped and drugged day in and day out, intimidated and threatened in order that they might comply with the things being inflicted upon them. There are those who make the argument that one reason such slavery occurs is because the policing systems along with other government agencies in the places it occurs is so poor. While this assertion may be true to a large extent, how do we then address the fact that in the US alone an estimated number of 17,000 young women and girls are forced in to the organized sex industry each year. How do we as Americans explain the terrors of young girls and children being drugged prostituted against their will in our own country? Many of these girls are kidnapped from their neighborhoods and still even more either illegal immigrants or foreigners visiting America. Visit the site below to hear “Katya”s story as a Ukrainian foreign exchange student who as reported y MSNBC was kidnapped and trafficked.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22083762/ns/today-today_people/#slice-2

Surrounded.

Surrounded by darkness and death, I look for the light and see less and less.

Tell me when the sun will shine, tell me when happiness will find its way to the lives of the many who have yet to see the joys of life.

Where life has taken more than it has given there are those who cant bear to feel.

How then can we see where we're going when we are blinded by the ignorance of our own self analysis?

This darkness has led to a paralysis of the spirit,                                                                                                                                                                                   

Leaving the mind unable to define that which it has taken in.

Lost and unable to see direction

I fear that I should be stuck in the mire of inopportunity.

Have I relinquished my destiny?

So then tell me where is the community?

Who is to help me to see and to be my guide

I didn't come all this way just to tag along for the ride

I know we aren't the drivers but aren't you here to help me change these tires of mobility,

Helping me to see what the Driver sees and read the warning signs?

Ever Wonder?

Ever wonder how it is that certain things and certain people become so important to us? Its amazing how one day your just meeting a person and sometime later you are closer than you ever imagined. In life we seem to have the tendency to caracterize our life by the places we've been, the people we know or the jobs we've had but often many people find that these things just aren't enough. So the question then becomes what makes us enough, are we ever enough and if we never really reach that place where we are fulfilled in life what else do we have to look to?