3 in a row
In the last couple of days there have been 3 incidents with 3 different people. People I kind of thought of as friends. I still do. I don't want to say I was "surprised" by any of these things, I wasn't in the general state of things. I mean knowing the people as much as I do I knew it was in their personality, I just was surprised by the specific things that happened.
And I know they are just being who they are but it still hurts a bit. And just odd that all 3 happened in succession!
favorite quote
My favorite quote from the Jodi Picoult book "Sing you home" that I wrote about yesterday is:
"At prayer meetings we hear people say they have cancer or that they need a job. We never hear people confess to looking up Internet porn or to having gay fantasies. Why is that? Why is church not a safe place to come if you are tempted by sin - any sin? If we can't be that safe place then we share the responsibility when those people fail."
2012 and the world
If 2011 wasn't bad enough, the world is now supposed to end at the winter solstice of 2012. Of course, the world was supposed to end a couple of times this year, but that didn't work out, I think?
I am very happy to have finished the blog a prayer a day project for December. It was quite good for me.
I ordered Jodi Picoult's "sing you home" from amazon for $5. I thought the storyline sounded interesting in their online posting but when I read the introduction I was a bit disappointed when she said she was "writing in part about gay rights". I don't have a problem with books about gay rights but it felt like trickery not to let the consumer know that upfront. In the end though I think that Jodi did take a balanced look at the issue in that she presented both sides of the issue pretty accurately!
I am a wee bit sluggish today thanks to the silly cold. :(
Pushing through
There was one day in the last week that I did not want to write on my main blog. Maybe it was yesterday, I can't remember.
It was worse than just not wanting to write. It was everything inside me saying I wanted to SLEEP. That I had nothing to say (I probably didn't). That I didn't feel like it. But I made a month long commitment to write every day. And except for the day that the copycheck was running and my computer was tied up, I have kept to it. Even when I really didn't want to!
moving out of the dark space
Most of 2011 has been a year that I don't want to live through again. I am hopeful that I am moving out of this dark spot. Thanks in large part to prayers. I am thankful.
I have committed to God to write a prayer on my other blog for every day in December. This has been encouraging me to write more regularly. Writing is good for me I think. Today I didn't really want to write but I wrote twice! I'll try to unpack more of what is going on as I am able!
You belong here
The sign outside the Y says "You belong here, you just haven't signed up yet". Everytime I see it I think of God. How He wants people to belong with him but not everyone signs up to be with him.
Biblical rules
I watched the talk by
AJ Jacobs about his "Year of Living Biblically"If you are going to watch it, watch it now so I don't ruin the ending for you!
He spends a year trying to follow all the rules in the Bible.
He concludes that is is not possible to keep all the rules in the Bible.
He's quite a personable guy and I really enjoyed the talk. I agree with him that it is impossible to keep all the rules in the Bible.
However, where he goes after this is where we part in agreement.
He concludes after this that because you can't keep all the rules in the Bible, you should "pick and choose" which ones are applicable and good to keep.
I disagree which being able to pick and choose what rules to keep. I think the fact that it is impossible to keep all the rules in the Bible is designed to show us that we need God. No matter how good or kind we are, we can't ever be perfect without God's help. The rules point us to God. That we need a saviour to take us to the level that God sees us through instead of having God look at us with the rules (where we will obviously fail). Our success depends only on the blood that Jesus shed. It's not about us, it's about Him.
