i have spent a leisurely weekend reading, watching tv and window shopping for a new car.  when i purchased the car i have now i was overly excited about it and went to the first dealership i came too, after asking advice from friends who had purchased there, fell in love with the first car i saw and drove it way without asking the right questions. 

i have spent the last 3 years repenting for this mistake everytime something fell off of it or stopped working on it.  bad dealership + bad car + bad deal… = sad owner.  i have been looking into cars, companies and dealerships this time.  i have not even stepped foot onto a real dealership yet, and have been dealing only virtually with this car research. 

i am kind of looking between, a kia, hyundai, and a ford… not too sure which module yet, but i really like the prices of the hyundai’s…. however, i am looking for another part time job, that i will love for the next 4-5 years, that will be my car money.  i can live on the money i make from the one job i have (though it would be nice to have more for a coushin…) 

so i am not planning on having a new car for the next little while anyways, but by summer or fall at least, it would be nice. 

i am also looking at colour, i am a girl after all…   i will update you all on what i find and ultimately, what i decide on.

Angel

one of these girls, who look about 15, is talking about the separation of her mom and step-dad.  she is concerned that they will be divorcing soon and she is not sure what to do.  she is explaining about the adultry on both sides and her well meaning friends, are encouraging her that all will be okay, their parents have divorced and it just happens, no big deal, nothing to worry about. 

how sad.  i am struck by the hopelessness of this conversation… the beginning and endings of marriages are now, no big deal for the youth of this world, and who do they have to turn to, others who do not understand anymore than themselves.  where is God in their lives, who do they have to turn to that will give them hope?  God is all that they need and the only one who can love them through this…

and then i am struck with this desire to share about Jesus with them and yet, still i hold back because i am not sure really what to say or how it will be recieved.  and yet, they are still so hopeless…. and then i think… i am called to GO… i said to God send me, and he did and yet, i just cannot muster up enough strength to share… to help. 

what good are we when everyone around us is hopeless and on their way to a sure end and all i can do is sip my latte….

so i write this tonight, not even a half an hour into this new year and in fact, new decade…as a new person.  i am not the person i was last year at this time… i am not even the person i was a month ago…

so happy new years everyone, and in the words of my irish decendants, May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

May i also add, may we always remember the lessons that God has taught us through the trials of 2009 and keep them close to our hearts through out all of the years to come.  May 2010 be the best year yet, far surpassing all the years past. 

love, the girl.

i am writing because it is my favourite night of the year, Christmas eve.  i love christmas eve even more than christmas day, why, i am not too sure, i guess i feel like christmas is over once the day has begun, i really love the whole season of christmas.

so tonight i am sitting here in my comfy chair with my fuzzy blanket, my cat is sitting on the back of the chair purring and the tree is blinking… and i am thinking.  last year christmas was hard.  my friendship with one of my friends was quickly coming to an end as i was realizing how she had been lying to me about most things for years and she had a mental illness that was coming to light which she was not willing to deal with, my time at my church was also coming to an abrupt end as my pastors had both fallen into sin and would not listen to anyone… including God… i was in pain because of the tumour in my head that doctors were not doing anything about and my ministry was closing because of said pastors who had decided that the kids we ministered to were no longer “deserving” of our time.

i may sound bitter, but i really am not, i am simply stating the facts… sad as they are. Christmas eve and the coming year were difficult, heartbreaking and at times it felt like hell…. in this year almost everyone i know has walked away from me, but i feel now, being on the other side of the hard times that God was pruning my life.  i am so greatful for those that are still here and others who have risen up.  mostly i am so amazed with God… i have seen him in a way i never have before.

i am glad for the coming year and am just as glad to say goodbye to 2009…. but i am thankful for what i have learned and for who i have become this year.  even through the fire joy comes… not always when we are burning up, but always when we have come out the other end. 

i do not blame anyone, everyone has gone through hard times this year, some made bad decisions and others made good ones… i made both.  i miss some of those who have left, but i am greatful for God removing or allowing them to be removed because there was great growth because of their leaving. and i will never forget them.

i sit here tonight remembering the good times, the bad times, and thanking God for his faithfulness, his correction and his grace and love.  without him i would have never survived… without my mom i would never have gone forward, i would never have loved or lived, and i would have been alone, and without linda and vicki i would never have smiled…

i guess i wanted to write this to share with whomever reads my writing that there is hope… in Jesus, with God…. not in this world, not in our friends or family (they can be used of God to be his hands, arms and mouth…) but without God, no hope exists.. we cannot hold our jobs, ministries, churches, pastors…. etc as our hope… but we can and must look to God… hold onto him, cry out to him and wait for an answer… he will answer, he will make a way where there seems to be only a mountain too big for you to climb… he will. 

merry christmas and a wonderfully blessed 2010!

i was just sitting here, in my room and thinking about christmas, and frost and snow and all of that.   and then i realised that it is coming to a close… 2009 i mean.  the last 2 years, as you can see from some previous posts have been the hardest in my life.  to tell you the truth, the past 10 years has been really no picinic… but the last 2 have been quite hellish. 

i have lost almost every friend, or so called friend, that have had, i have lost my church and church family, my leaders have fallen flat down on their faces and i have been dispised and ridiculed…. i have almost lost faith in God, and have not entered a church in almost a year… however, through it all, somehow… i survived. 

and i will tell you, it is not all about me… not in the least.  i may sound whiny, i sure hope not, but to some, i am sure that i do.  i have realized that faith is not held together by the walls of a church and salvation is not handed out like merrit points from a fleshfilled pastor.  i have come to see my own failures as well as others and have accepted forgiveness daily for sin.  i have cried more tears than i thought possible and have broken more times than i thought one could… but yet, God has been there through it all… holding my hand when needed and correcting me often… sometimes minute by minute. 

i have lost all of the dross life held… all the extras things that were not really important.  i however, have my God, my faith and my family, and for that i am more greatful than i could think possible.  and now as we enter into this christmas season, that looks so very different than last years, i am full of peace, joy and love… like never before.

do i still ache with loss, yes.  do i miss those i held dear, of course… i at times long for things to be the same as they were 12 months ago, and sometimes i cry out to God to make it as though i had never met them to begin with… and yet, i know that i must walk this road and i also know, i do not walk it alone…

they all sounded so very promising and yet, now not so much.  the childcare ones seemed very good and now they need me to have criminal record checks that i cannot afford and the non-profit sounded great a few weeks ago, before it became a contract position that may or may not be extended and added to.

i have to call my collection agency that holds my student loans tomorrow and explain why i still have nothing to offer them and nothing concrete to promise.  i owe on my phone that i purchased when i had a good job and now am stuck in a contract that is as low as i can get it and yet still cannot afford it.  because i have been off work for a while and really did expect a job i have had to use my mastercard and owe on it again, and also owe for car insurance that i am keeping only because i was hoping for the job caring for children that is out of town.

and i am frustrated.  do i know that God provides, yes, but when i just do not know.  i am irritated that i cannot just have a great paying full time job that i will love doing and make more than enough to live and to travel on… others do it, why can’t i?

i have heard lately about many people in the church that have confessed to sexual sin, it may be an extramarital affair, or homosexual desires and actions.  to God, from what the word says, they are in the same category of sexual sin.  

God has called us to marry one spouse of the opposite sex and to have one sexual partner (the one we marry, after we marry.)  the word talks about the ties of sex and how sex is a particular tie (spiritually.)  we have all understood this. (well anyone who has had sex.  i have not, but i have asked a lot who have.) and all you have to do is turn on jerry springer or any other talk show to see the problems with having more than one sexual partner, or the issues that arise with pre-marital sex.

now you may say, well, what about the affairs, those men or women were married.  yes, they were, however, i would be bold enough to guess that somewhere along the line they no longer understood or care about the seriousness of marriage and purity.  

sometimes we do not understand this when we go into a marriage, or sometimes it is a bit down the line when we have been married for a few years and we are no longer as twitter-patted with our spouse as we once were and maybe we are also not guarding our hearts and the walls around our marriages as we used to be.  but there in lies the problem.  somewhere either from the start or later on we put down our guard, we forget the maker of our union, the holder of our marriage covenant.  and we go on with life and leave prayer, truth, and God by the wayside.

when we do this, we become like sheep that have wondered away from the shepherd…. lost, alone and vulnerable.  

the same can be said for those who act out on homosexual desires.  we all have sinful thoughts, and they are not good, they need to be repented for not hidden.  it is in the hiding of sin that we fall deeper into the vortex of the enemies hold.  the enemy of our souls wants us to be trapped, to be lost and to run from God…. and he does this in us by separating us from truth, repentance, forgiveness and our Father… and he does this by lying to us.  making us believe that we have gone so far that we cannot be forgiven, or even that there is no forgiveness needed for our actions.

the enemy has even infiltrated the church and has captivated the leaders and followers by lies telling them that homosexuality and other sexual sins are nothing more than exploring our sexuality or even God given… the enemies biggest lie is that God created us to be homosexual or with multiple partners, leaving us empty, aching and feeling alone.  

the thoughts may always be there.  but our actions are something that we can and need to control.  we do not have to act on thoughts.  we can repent for them and ask God to give us the strength to endure.  we are not in this alone.  we are not called to live life and fight our battles without God, no more than we are called to give in to our sinful desires.  

God has equipped us well. we have the sword of truth which we are called to always hold. God has also promised to always be with us.  we have been give the holy spirit which is a councillor… we can go to holy spirit any time.  we are also called to have those around us that we can confess to and ask to be held accountable and held up when we feel weak.  

there is a way to win this battle.  there is a way to live purely in marriage life, dating life and single life… the way is Jesus.  without him, we are nothing and nothing is worth anything.  cry out for Jesus. he loves you more than you will every understand in this world.  freedom is at your fingertips.

i had a great many times of sadness in my childhood, deaths of family/friends, bullying and a crazy and mean aunt who was married to my cruel uncle who both in turn raised my cousins to be equally crazy and cruel, but all in all, i had a wonderful childhood.

i had a great grandfather and grandmother, a wonderful mom and a loving (at times cranky) aunt val (my mom’s sister.) this family (minus my crazy and cruel aunt, uncle and cousins) nurtured my imagination and love of books, movies and all other types of story-telling. they would play dress up with me and act out characters that i loved in books, movies and cartoons.  

i also was blessed with a marvellous godfather who brought to me the world.  he taught me about countries i had never heard of by sharing with me his national geographic, history books and atlases.  he bought me a globe and i spent hours flying around the spinning world with my finger,  landing in magical places in seconds and then looking them up in books learning about the people, land, culture and just how far it was from my home in canada.

gordon (my godfather) had travelled to many of these destinations and had come home with presents for me.  he celebrated with me as i grew up and travelled around the globe in a real plane bringing back presents for him and sharing with him the stories of my journeys. 

gordon was a 6 foot man, bigger than life to me.  a farmer, mechanic and world traveller.  i believed that he knew everything about everywhere as we spent hours pouring over the yellow framed national geographics and learning about places unknown to a small child like i was.  he could tell me the history of china as though he had lived it, he shared with me the secrets of the mummies and the stories of the pyramids.  

now i am 31 years old.  in love with the countries and people groups all over this world.  God has used gordon to share with me his love of travel for future and present mission work.  and sadly as i embark on my future travels, gordon has been transferred to a home for the elderly.  this man who once stood high above me has shrivelled into a small person that i could carry.  the man who knew the history of great nations, the rise and fall of empires has forgotten his brothers names and where they live.

i have a job to do tomorrow.  we are heading over to his home (that he has lived in for more than 40 years) and we will be packing his beloved books up and looking over his belongings.  cleaning the shelves that my grandfather (his best friend) built when i was young and removing the long time residence of those shelves.  the books that have been read and re-read, flipped and folded pages that have been lovingly turned, at times almost devoured for the wisdom within.  

so as the movie, “where the wild things are” is being released this weekend, a new chapter has begun in my life, like max i find myself in a place i have never been before, feeling anger and sadness, loneliness and fear, and as max does, i long to climb into the boat and leave the monsters of death, illness and age behind me to find my mother in the other room and the dinner of years lost still hot in my purple room amidst the memories of my childhood…. another adventure to be had with my godfather, grandma, grandpa, mom and aunt….

i am concerned because we in the church have really begun to be tolerant to things that God is not tolerant to.  in fact God is not tolerant at all.  there is right, and there is wrong and there is no in between in the word of God. the church has adopted a world view that love means acceptance… however, love does not mean agreeing with someone’s beliefs, behaviour or actions. love does not mean that we accept what others do, in fact it means the opposite.  

we are called to preach the word, be in the world and not of it, that means not being “of” other religions as well.  many have said that Jesus would have lived in peace with all religions… however, he did not, he spoke quite loudly about lies and about false teachers, even within Christianity.  

there is one God, and there is one way to him and that is Jesus himself.  the day that we put down our spiritual sword of truth and become tolerant to others beliefs is the day of great sadness.  there are people going to hell today.  there are people that do not know the Lord, they may know allah or buddah or some other impostor but they do not know the KING of kings…. and they do not know Jesus…. and they need to.  

i would like to say that Bono and others like him are doing some good, but i just cannot put away the thought that this is part of what the Lord said that there would be in the last days lies that would rise up…. liars that would look very real and that people would follow them…. 

i am sad to see that in one of the pictures Bono is wearing a blindfold, and i feel that is a perfect description to what is happening here… we are blinding ourselves to the truth… there is right and wrong, there is sin and righteousness and there is nothing in between…. do not allow the enemy to blind you.

My position/opinions on all things in this world and the next are tied to my faith in God and have been formed because of what the Word of God teaches us. My position/opinions and God cannot be separated. 

The position I hold on pro-life issues are no different. I believe that the Scriptures are the Word of God and because of this belief, I know that God formed us all in our mother’s wombs, that He has plans for us that are for good, and that He has granted us life. I believe that no matter how we came into being, whether it was a planned pregnancy, a surprise or sometimes through a violent act that God has a plan for us being in this world and it is for good and not evil.

I believe that because God has given us a life, and has designed our very forms, planning our lives for us, that He has the sole ownership over our lives. I believe that this the same for all of us on this earth, whether or not we believe this, there is still a plan for us and an opportunity for us to live it. I believe that from conception to natural death, God knows the days of our lives and that we do not have any “right” to shorten anyone’s life even by a minute. (By “right” I mean God given “right.”)

I believe that all life is precious, I believe that we have been given wisdom to make the right choices in our lives but when we do make a choice that we should not have made, it is up to us to use wisdom in what steps to take next. I believe that taking the life of a child that has yet to be born because of an unplanned pregnancy or someone else’s violence is not a wise or loving decision to make, nor is it something that we have the “right” to do. 

I also believe that though we may grow old and ill or even become ill as younger people, we do not have the “right” to take our own life or the lives of others. I believe this all comes down to a very clear decision, – are we going to make the choice our flesh dictates, or our spirit. We need to know that there is a clear right and wrong choice in these debates, taking life is wrong, our lives have not been given to us to begin or end, our lives are a precious gift lent to us for a time determined by our Creator. 

I believe as well that we are not called to end a person’s life because of a crime they have committed, I believe that we are called to keep others safe and therefore I fully agree with the justice system taking steps to keep a violent offender off the streets, but I do not agree with the death penalty. 

I know with some pro-life supporters, war is something they do not agree with in anyway. I do however support our governments in entering into war. I believe there are times when we must protect others in our country and though I do not take delight in the deaths caused by war, nor do I believe there is ever a “need” for war, I however know at times it is necessary for our armies to enter into wars to protect the innocent. 

I know that life is the answer, I know that pro-choice is tolerant behaviour. When it comes to choosing life over death, there is no cross road, there is only one choice. 

I am moved by the mother who carries a child she was not expecting and yet loves that child more than herself so she is willing to give birth to this child. Maybe she will raise this child on her own, or maybe she will find another loving home for this child, either way, she has chosen life. 

I am amazed by the family that cares for an elderly relative who is in pain and dying. They love them, and feed them, bathe them and keep them comfortable until the day the Lord calls them home. I believe it takes more love to care for someone than to help them die. 

I believe that from conception until natural death a person has a purpose. I believe that no matter what we are going through on earth that God is not far from us and He is not too far away to hear our cries and to hold our hands. 

I am a strong believer in abstinence and I believe that we need to cry out from our roof tops that there is another choice besides safe sex and that is waiting for marriage. It can be done, and it can be done without feeling like you are missing something in life. I believe that most sin in this world is caused by sexual sin and if we are able to teach children that they are precious in the eyes of God, that we have a chance to prevent unplanned pregnancies and therefore prevent abortions. I am a strong believer in preventing crisis rather that cleaning them up. 

I believe that God is the answer to how we can communicate the message of life, He is the only answer. I believe as well that as we spread the news about purpose, that we all have a God planned purpose in this world, that life will be the only choice. Life as long as God has designed it for each of us.