God is my Helper

God is my everything.

God is all-powerful.

God is all-knowing.

God is always loving.

God is ready to give me His words.

God provides for my everyday life.

God gave me a wonderful family.

God gave me an amazing guy.

God gave me beautiful friends.

God always watches out for me.

God is always ready to help me obey Him.

God protects me from harm.

God gives me the little things that I don't even need.

God knows what I do need, and He's never left me without it.

God always loves me.

God always forgives me.

God sent His son for me.

God does not lose His temper.

God is always there for me

God always hears me when I talk to Him.

God always pays attention when I talk to Him.

God does not just ignore me.

God is faithful to tell me what is right.

God always wants the best for me.

So why then...

do I be selfish?

Why do I be disobedient?

Why do I forget to be grateful?

Why do I snork around when things don't go my way?

Why do I be impatient?

Why do I sin?

Why do I not pay attention to God like He pays attention to me?

What I do not want to do, I do.

LORD, help me always to be alert to You. Thank You for loving me.

Our world is emptier than we know

Every bit of matter on earth is made up of atoms--the smallest particle of any element. EVERYTHING you can see and even stuff you can't is made up of these guys. They behave differently, making up different things, etc. But there is no escaping that atoms make up our whole world--everything we know.

But here is something very interesting to note. See the picture. Atoms are made up of a nucleus and tiny particles and electrons. Nobody is quite sure of theire precise looks because they are so tiny. But we do know that most of the atom is empty space.

Think of that! The Creator of the universe used these tiny building blocks to build earth...but it is mostly empty space.

This is just interesting to me.

The latest thing I'm praying about...

My mom and some ladies of our church were talking about different parenting books the other night. There are a great many, as we all know. I was just listening and thinking, maybe I should read a parenting book. I'm not a parent, but I work with kids in babysitting and with my own sibs. But then I thought maybe a parenting book still wouldn't be quite right for such a job as mine. I made an aloud wonder about the fact that there are a great many "parenting" books, but no "big sissying" books. This was met with the response. "You should write it! That would be perfect and it would sell!"

Hmmmm...would it? One part of me says I don't know if it's something I could do. I'm sure there are much better big sissys than me that should be doing it. I'm positive. But the other part of me says, those ones aren't doing it. And God has given me the most diverse set of little siblings to ever stick in one family. I have...

A quirky and gorgeous one who's always good for a story

A studly and goofy one in between kid and man

A flibbertygibbet who can think and do cool things

A quiet and loud at the same time one

One that just wants to have fun

A strange, surprising, cocky, and cute one

A precious baby girl with some bite

and

A small and serious one with a large vocabulary

The biggest thing I've learned with having eight, very different little sibs is how to generally get along with everybody. Living with such different personalities all the time I think has really helped me not just learn to get along with them, but with other different personalities outside the home.

I may just have to figure out how to transfer that from this thought, to like a big sissy study. If I did this thing I'd certainly need some help from my big sissy friends! Not to mention I have an adopted big sissy who's purty special to go off of a bit as well.

Just something I'm praying about...

Left Behind?

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."

~ Revelation 22:18-19

A curious thought occured to me when I read this last night. I thought of the Left Behind book series, which is a fictional account of the second coming and all the things that happen in Revelation. I wonder what exactly John means by adding and taking words away. I'm pretty sure the authors of the LB books were not right about a whole bunch of stuff. As fiction authors, they added this and weren't sure about that. But then it is only meant to be fiction. Though I wonder if making fiction of it is taking the prophecy too lightly.

Any thoughts?

Who knew it could be hard?

Isn't it safer to simply keep the heart locked up and barricaded completely?

To run the delicate romantic situations with one's head?

'Course I just love the dude friends in my life.

I'm proud to know some amazing, funny, talented, Christian, good-looking young men.

But why do we all have to grow up and let things get awkward and...FEELY?

Can't we all just stay friends like we were when we were ten?

I'd honestly rather, and not have to think about anybody THAT WAY.

Unless, of course, he was the real One.

Hopefully the LORD would tell me that without waiting around.

But if you are not the real One and you're interested in me...

I probably like you as a good friend something fierce.

But I hope you know I'd rather be friends the way we always have been.

That would be the hard part--if you felt that way, and you weren't the One, but you were a good friend of mine.

Then it would my job to shovel a trench between us, one that never needed to be there before.

I'd do the shovel work while being just torn up inside because I couldn't just be your friend like always.

I would dig.

I'd like you too much not to dig.

I wouldn't let you get into a relationship that I knew wouldn't work in the long run.

I'd feel bad you felt the way you did for your sake and do anything to make it go away.

I'd feel bad for my own sake, because things could never be the same as the short time ago when we were all children.

And you would not have a clue why I was digging trenches.

You would probably feel really hurt over it.

And that would make me cry a lot.

Even the using-head-only-Meggy would feel awful that you were sad.

So I'd pray for God to tell you that we just weren't right.

So you could be the one to tell me.

And then we could just be friends and that's all.

It would save me some pain and digging.

And maybe both of us some hurt.

Ya know?

Just thought I'd say.. in case anything ever happened that that way.

In short, "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax!!!!!!!!! Help me!!!!!!!!!!! I'm.................

FEELING!!!!!!"

LORD, I'm your servant

Father, you are the Sovereign LORD,

and I am dust upon the floor.

Your power and purity brightens my life,

though I often block it out and and ignore your wondrous light.

No more, my Jesus. Drive it far from me.

You are the Master--the writer of my story,

but as a simple human girl, I cannot see the glory.

I do not know what you have planned.

Reveal it, O LORD, though I may not understand.

For to obey my God is by far my greatest wish,

and everything you want is what I must accomplish.

I will not lean on my understanding

for even I do not trust in my own speculating.

But I know, my Jesus, that you have an idea.

Let me in on the action--please make your scheme clear.

Whatever you say is what I will do.

My story will be the one written by You.

Interesting Bit...

When Hezekiah became king (the first good one in a good while) he reestablished the temple of the LORD and made offerings and set the people up to serve him yet again. He also invited all Israel and Judah to come to the temple to celebrate the passover, something which had probably not been done in a while. The king's couriers went all throughout the land with letters, telling all the people to come and please God by doing this. But you know what? The couriers were mostly just mocked by the people! The people had been distant from God for so long, that many of them weren't open to Him anymore. BUT some people humbled themselves and came to the temple for the feast.

All happy and good right? Not quite. If you remember, there were many rules and that went into the eating of the passover. The LORD was very particular about which hand they were to hold the staff in, what they were to wear, etc. Not to mention they had to go to Jerusalem for a ceremonial cleansing--otherwise they could not eat the passover. But in this case, the children of Israel were just creeping back to God, mostly unfamiliar with his commands. Listen to this!

Although most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, "May the LORD, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on seeking God--the LORD, the God of his fathers--even if he is not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary." And the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people.

~ 2 Chronicles 30:18-20

I read that a couple of times to let that sink in. A zillion things ran through my head of what all that actually meant! The LORD just cleansed the people who were set on serving him! The first thing I think of is that our God is the same yesterday and today and forever--he is always devising schemes and sacrificing and forgiving and cleansing so that we may be close to him. I also thought of Peter's vision. Where the sheet full of unclean animals keeps dropping down and the LORD says, "Do not call unclean what the LORD has made clean".

I also thought it interesting that God did it on nothing other than Hezekiah's simple request for their pardon. I have been wondering if, even today, we can pray for God to forgive others of sins they don't know they have commited. After all, Jesus asked the LORD to forgive those who were crucifying him, because they did not know what they were doing. It doesn't say clearly whether God did, but I guess I'm just curious to know the length of God's forgivespan ;)

Any thoughts? What popped into your head when you read that passage?

Thoughts of Freedom and Sin

All have sinned and fallen short (by a long way) of the glory of God. We as Christians know this better than anyone else. But when we come to the LORD, we know that he sets us free, cleanses us, and makes us new. An amazing thing.

I am not like some, who had a horrible life before they came to the LORD, but I know this is the case for many. I can't put myself in their shoes of course, but it seems like being free and cleansed in Christ would be a whole different experience than it has been for me. I can't remember any heinous sins I committed before the age of four when I accepted Christ--my relationship with God has always kind of been there and been growing as time goes on. So I can't remember ever a time when I sinned and I didn't get a talk about it with the Holy Spirit. There have been MANY of those times and will be many more. I still get upset over my sin and get frustrated that it's still there--after all, I've been disrespectful since I was four, why does it go on? You know what I mean?

All that to lead up to this: my experience with sin is different than some of those who come to Christ later in life. Some have done horrible things that were detestable to God even before they knew him, and now that they do know him they are very upset about them. Let's say there was a guy who spent every day of his life for 3 years killing one person per day. After the daily murder, let's say he went on to a bank and robbed a different bank of at least $50,000 every day. Then we'll say that every day after these things, he sold all kinds of drugs to school kids and spent the rest of his night causing fights in bars.

All this every day. And then he came to Christ.

After he came to Christ, I guess he'd turn himself in to the law and get sent to prison for...I'd guess that should be about the rest of his life :) But all the while in prison he spends the whole time studying the word, talking to pastors, listening to tapes, becomes a really nice guy, and starts a ministry in the prison that converts several other prisoners to Christ. Now this man LOVES the LORD like crazy, and now he feels as awfully about his life as you or I would. Or worse.

What should his attitude be?

God says his grace and mercy are limitless, and this man would be just as much his child as I am. This much I know. His sin would be rendered powerless against God. But he still did it. It was all still committed. He could bemoan his past and all the things he did, constantly saying what a horrible person he was, and suffer in his dreams every night because of his past sin. He could resolve not to get into deep relationships with anyone because he wouldn't want to involve them in who he had been. If he did these things, I would not blame him in the least--it almost seems that he SHOULD think this way after all that sin! I think I probably would!

But here is what I've been thinking about...is this mindset, even in these circumstances, honoring to God? If God's power and grace are more powerful than this sin, is it right to dwell on your past, now that you are clean? CAN you or SHOULD you behave as a cleansed and righteous one? My gut says that if the LORD has freed you, you are free indeed, and can tell all with a clear conscience that you are the child of God that you are and not different than any other of God's saved ones. My gut says that dwelling in the past is insulting the blood of the Lamb, who has got rid of this past.

But something else (maybe it's my head) thinks that still bemoaning your past and your sin makes sense and is ok...we ARE supposed to grieve about our sin, and maybe if you had THAT MUCH sin than this would be an ok measure to take. Maybe I just think it makes sense because this is probably what I would do in the circumstances.

This probably sounded completely random, but it's what I've been thinking :) Any thoughts?