We Are All One...

So I'm sitting in worship last night{I love to watch other people during worship! Seeing them praise God, it's a wonderful thing. :))} & I'm looking around at everyone, just watching & observing them all, when I realized something. Not a single person who came in would sit in a row that had 6 seats or less available{because that meant someone was already in that row}. Now. You may be asking, "What's wrong with that?" but Wednesday night services at my church aren't that big, & yet chances are you may have someone in almost every single row except the very very very back ones on a Wednesday night, Why's that? Because we're scared to meet new people! We honestly don't want to sit next to someone we have never met before! How sad is that! Over the last few weeks I've had the privilege of meeting & making a new friend, & let me just tell you, IT'S SO WONDERFUL. It's amazing how awesome it is! You get to learn all about this person, what they love & hate, like & dislike, eat & won't eat{or can't!}, what their lives look like, what God looks like from their point of view! & to top it off with a nice large cherry, YOU GET TO TELL THEM ABOUT YOURSELF, & who doesn't love talking about themselves?{okay, okay. I love to talk. Especially about myself sometimes, but you aren't weird if you don't enjoy talking about yourself. There are actually probably PLENTY of people who don't like to talk about themselves...}
Annyyyyhoooooowwwww. ha.
So. I'm thinking about it. About how wonderful it is to meet & make new friends, & I wonder, why don't we sit next to strangers in church? Why don't we branch out of our groups & meet new people? Why do we stay in the comfort of what is normal, & hope & pray that we have exciting lives? What's exciting about normal?
& I mean. Honestly. What have you got to lose in making new friends, or even just meeting someone new? Nothing really. Unless of course you'd count that row of seats you had all to yourself a loss.

Gifts

Okay. Let's talk about gifts for a minute or two. Especially with Christmas coming around soon, {& me & my sisters have started a tradition of giving gifts on thanksgiving as well} I've come to think on the subject of gifts a lot lately. & I've actually learned something new about them as well. But about spiritual gifts, not physical ones{more on that(Spiritual gifts) later}. Anyhow. Hm. Where was I? Oh yes! Learning something new about spiritual gifts! It isn't anything spectacular, but I was reading through I Corinthians 12 the other morning where it is talking about the diversity in spiritual gifts, & in verses 9 & 10, I found something most interesting{& a bit of a new concept for me} "...To another gifts of healings by the same spirit, to another the working of miracles,..." Now I know you are probably thinking "What does that have to do with anything?!" but the thing I learned from that is this; That the gift of healing, & the gift of miracles are two completely different sets of gifts! Woah! Talk about a twist on the story!{at least for me, folks...} I had always just assumed healings to be miracles, {& they are!}, but those two verses tell me that a healing in & of itself, is a whole different concept, & gift, than just any other miracle. Now. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, about healings, & how we often are ashamed to proclaim Christ in the sense that we don't often reach out to pray healing over someone, unless asked to directly. Which, in my opinion is not a sin, nor is it the right thing to do, necessarily, but think about it for a minute{please} If healing someone is so amazing that Paul put it into it's own gifting category, don't you think that those who possess such a gift should employ it? Now granted, I don't believe that means they can heal whoever, whenever, even Jesus told people of the requirement{That they have faith!!}, & though they aren't recorded in the Bible{That I know of}I'm sure at least once or twice people were not healed, because they did not have faith, in Jesus' ministry. Does that make Jesus any less so a good person? Or any less God's son? No. So we should also be careful not to judge those who we don't believe to be using their gift of healing, when we think they should, it is between them & God, but we should also ask ourselves if we possess that gift? It's a tricky thing, knowing what your gift(s) is(are), I myself have not the slightest idea so far{God will reveal it in the right timing, I suppose:))}, but if it has not been revealed to you that you possess the gift of healing, or miracles, please, don't just go out into the streets & test if you do. I think it would be a most unpleasant situation for everyone involved if it was proven that you, in fact, do NOT possess either of those giftings.
Anyhow. Now that I've ranted my dear little heart out on the subject of giftings{& it is all probably ill-conceived & said too...}, & have spoken my mind on how they are to be dealt with, I bid you all Adieu, & Goodnight. :))

Selections

By Jove!! The elections are over, & I can only say that I am highly confused. I mean I wasn't that into it all anyways, but from what I had heard, I didn't think it would end up going this direction. Anyhow. The point of this post isn't to bash Obama, or praise Romney, or vice versa, but rather to say this(a thought of mine that came up whilst eating my dinner tonight).

Before the election, I heard of many people having prayer meetings & just personally praying for, & over the election, & then I see the same people upset over how it went. What's wrong with that? You may well ask, well, in my opinion, nothing. But, & I understand that this is a very disappointing thing for you all, shouldn't we instead be looking at this in a different way? Shouldn't we be saying & looking for the reasons why God said Obama was the right choice for America in this time? Shouldn't we look for ways that we ourselves can bring about the change we have cried & struggled for so violently the last few months, through the political ads & phone calls? Shouldn't we, instead of calling it quits with the end of the election, continue our prayers, for our nation, government, & over all, our President? I'm sure that years from now, the current President at that time will then be considered the worst President ever, as they all seem to have been while they were the ones holding the power, but perhaps we should adapt to not pointing out all the flaws & wrongs done by the President, & hope that, God willing, this term will prove different, & God willing, America will prove different, because after all, this is OUR country, not just our President's.

Mind Wanderings.

Entitlement. It's a word that I've been wondering a lot about these past few days. What makes a person entitled to something? What makes feeling entitled okay? WHEN is it okay? After coming home from Haiti, the fact that I saw so much selflessness, & so much love for OTHERS, I wonder is it EVER okay for me to feel entitled? I have so much. Literally everything I could ever hope to materially possess is right at my fingertips, waiting for me to buy it, revel in it, love it, enjoy it, & in two weeks, dispose of it. The people in Haiti have next to nothing, & yet they trust it ALL to God. Every. Last. Thing.
I've come to question so much of what I have been taught is socially acceptable, & "Christian". There are so many things that, after truly sitting down & thinking about them, I have realized aren't Biblical, & are actually quite the contrary. We have all been taught "Stranger Danger!" Which when used properly is a VERY good idea, but we have also been taught to take that to the extreme. When was the last time you said "Hi!" to a stranger while you WERE NOT working? Seriously. Tell me. Because before Haiti, I couldn't have told you. Proverbs 14:10 says "The Heart knows its own bitterness. & a stranger does not share its joy." We have become a nation, & generation, where we are all strangers. None of us share the joy of others, unless it is convenient for us to do so. We have become selfish in our way of thinking, & we only appear to not be so because of our deep desire to be accepted by everyone else & have them share in our own joys. We have all become so lost in the way of the world, so convinced that we are forever forgotten, we spend so much time thinking on our own "Insignificance" to others, we fail to see that everyone is feeling that way, that everyone thinks themselves insignificant to us, because we fail to pay attention to them, being busy feeling sorry for ourselves.
There are so many things that I now wish to change about myself, & the way I view not only the world, but its people therein, & how they live their lives. I've realized that I will generally look for the best way to make myself comfortable when doing things for others, so I can then say I'm being a "good" person, without too much inconvenience to myself, but like I said before, that is wrong, & (again) in Haiti, I learned & saw what the difference is. Here you are practically a saint if you hold the door open for someone, in Haiti a little 6 year old girl scraped the wet cement off of my hands, & wouldn't allow me to touch hers for fear of mine getting dirty again. She had cement on her hands, arms, face, on her pretty dress, & she was more concerned for my hands & work clothes than herself. Most of America was just shown up by a little girl who, to our standards, had nothing & every right to hate me.
The Haitian people have been used immensely by God in teaching me so many valuable lessons. & even though I am home, they are still being used daily, not only in my own life, but in the lives of everyone they meet.

well. all in all, I'd say this post has been all over the place, & so I will put an end to my ramblings for now. I do have one more thing to add though, just a quick little plea, Please don't ever forget that God has an amazing plan! Whether it be what you want, or whether it be the complete opposite, trust it, & Him, to know what's going on.

Thoughts.

Thoughts are a big part of my life. I think about everything. Whether I actually think things through though....who knows. The point is this; I am CONSTANTLY thinking about something, and how often is that something honoring to God, or even just not revolting to Him? Again who knows, but still. Its a thought that has really been tripping me out lately. There isn't much that I can do once I've thought of something, I can't just unthink it. I have to deal with that thought, and the consequences therein. That's why it is so important that we think only of good things. Chances of that actually happening. None. Chances of us trying? Pretty good if we are willing. So here goes 9). Unthink those thoughts that I haven't yet thought.

A Sad World

When I woke up this morning it was to my Mama asking if there was any way Jessi and my Grandma might've changed their minds and ended up going to the Aurora theater to see The Dark Knight Rises. I didn't know why she was asking, I just wanted to go back to sleep, but when she told me about the shooting my heart hurt. The one sentence that truly broke it though, was when it said the gunman "calmly" dropped his spent gun to grab his other one. Calmly. He wasn't worried, or at least he didn't show that he was. It said he "stalked" the aisles shooting at random. And the thing that truly hurt the most was thinking about WHY he did it, and I realize it's because he's a sinner, JUST. LIKE. ME. I think about how I look at this and I think "What a tragedy!"  "How sad!" and then I realize I'm in the same boat, I have sinned just as much as he has, and we both deserve Hell.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions....

Today I had a very thought provoking conversation about choice, and how God gave me my choice, and how I want to use that gift of choice to make the RIGHT choice. (Wow. That's a lot of "choice".) It got me thinking about what making a choice means to me, and I can honestly say that making my own choice means a lot, especially because I've been given the opportunity to do just that by an All-Powerful God. It's a simple choice really, but a choice that doesn't end when we make our decision, we have to continually make the decision each and every day to talk to God, to do what He has called us to do, and to see what He has to say to us. We are blessed beyond reason with just that one gift, and I don't see how when we decide to reject that gift it's helping our circumstances.
I don't know about you, but I would rather not get to Heaven and be talking to Paul, or Peter, or John, or any of the other Martyrs, and Die-Hard followers of Christ and say "Oh yeah! I did a car wash once!" No. I want to be able to say "I made the choice to 'Go unto ALL the world' and share the Gospel and the LOVE of Christ. All too often we say we are given one choice, and ultimately we have one truly remarkable choice to make, but there are so many decisions to be made every day! We don't realize how much each one should mean to us, because all too often, we don't realize we have them.
8). Think about the choices I have.


I know I already have a post about choices, but this one is a little bit different. Not the wrong ones I've made, but the ones still waiting.