The Unjust Shall Live By Lack Of Faith

“The Year Of Living Biblically (One man’s humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible)”
By A.J. Jacobs

Great News! According to A.J. Jacobs, now even atheists and agnostics have a place in Heaven! Pearly Gates-WIDE OPEN! You don’t even have to have faith-intellectual acceptance is enough.
I have a friend who lent me this book by A.J. Jacobs, and I have found it quite interesting. I believe Jacobs is a sincere, honest writer who came up with an intriguing idea. According to Wiki:
“Jacobs' new book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, chronicles his attempts to live for one year according to all the moral codes expressed in the Bible, including stoning adulterers, blowing a trumpet at the beginning of every month, and refraining from trimming his facial hair.”
Jacobs had a few obstacles in his path: he is/was a secular agnostic Jew who didn’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah. So the Old Testament was more palatable to him than the New. I’m reading the chapters now dealing with Jacobs attempts to follow the New Testament ‘rules’ while ignoring the references of Jesus Christ being equated to God.
Another obstacle for Jacobs: not just Christ, but Christians. He visits Jerry Falwell’s church, finds the Christians there to be warm and sincere…but they are also straightforward about considering Homosexuality sin. That doesn’t jibe with Jacobs beliefs; he makes up for it by finding and interviewing “Evangelical Gay Christians” who claim that every Biblical reference to homosexuality being an abomination are… misinterpreted. Silly old Patriarchs. Jacobs finds the “EG Christians” to be more acceptable. Comfortable.
Think about this: “One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible”…humble? Before Whom? With respect to Whom? Is he humble before God, or did he put ‘humble’ in the title to sell books?
Jacobs may be sincere, but attempting to follow the Biblical Laws while ignoring the Lawgiver (God, Not Moses) is ridiculous. This isn’t a full review-there is much more to the book, which is…verbose. The man knows how to write. And he loves to use a lot of words.
Heaven is the refuge of sinners. Jesus Christ is Our Savior because we need saving. Living biblically for a year to write a book is an intellectual enterprise, not a faithful one. As I told my friend who lent me the book, “I’ve been trying to live biblically for 30 years.” And it is humbling. And I am grateful to God every day FOR every day.

And For Him

“13For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15And He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:13-17

And for Him. Those who wonder why we are here, what purpose we serve in life, here is your answer.
We were created by God for God. We live by His good Grace, and live to raise up praise and worship to Him, commune with Him. Emmanuel. God with us. Not against us, not to us, but with us. Because of sin in this world, this domain of darkness, many reject Christ. It is not His will that any should perish, but that all should be saved. But only a small percentage are rescued; I can’t tell you why God chose me or anyone else. We who are chosen become brothers and sisters, transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son.
We don’t and can’t ever deserve such a wonderful gift. But we are grateful, and Praise God for rescuing us.
If you haven’t yet reached the point in your life where you feel that God is calling you, seeking to rescue you from this troubled dominion, I encourage you to seek Him, ask Him for the gift of Salvation.
As you look out on a world without hope, dark and troubled, know that there is Hope only in Jesus Christ.
The world will tell you that Christ is false, that Christians are fools, that there is no hope in Christ.
They were created as part of His Creation, and they reject Christ. They were ‘built to worship God’ but instead they worship themselves or some other lesser god.
Seek God while He may be found. Accept no substitutes. I hope to see you in Heaven.

Safe Journey

I live near what we in Phoenix term a "mountain" preserve, which would be more aptly named a "hill" preserve, but I guess we like to pretend here that something more majestic is going on. Regardless, it's a beautiful area that I can reach by abbreviated walk from my home. Then I escape into all the creativity of our heavenly Father's handiwork. It's a marvelous and quite vast area called Lookout Mountain. Maybe you can Google­® Map it. I head south right up 16th Street to get there.

While the weather is yet pleasant, and since my "retirement," I have tried to hike into the area once or even twice a week. I had been foraying out quite recklessly with nothing but myself for several weeks before my trainer insisted that I include a cell phone and some water on my trips. I'm not against a certain amount of caution, so at her advice I now drag along two items I really don't want to be carrying. I like to have my hands free for balance and I've never once felt the need to call anyone out there. But I guess there is a lot of loose rock, and on a downward incline I could slip and fall and then a phone would be handy. There have been occasions when I haven't seen anyone for a half hour or more. Maybe if I fell and wasn't sighted for a few hours I would actually need to have a sip of water. So there you have it, now I'm quite prepared. It hasn't cramped my style much; I spend an hour or so appreciating the beauty of the earth, thanking God as I travel for being so wonderful, and huffing and puffing. Often I try to pray, but frankly, it's hard for me to pray without closing my eyes, and that's not a good idea when one is maneuvering around a precipice.

I often receive funny "anti-exercise" emails from a certain friend of mine, so I've been trying to persuade her that exercise is a good thing, and in the case of hiking the preserve, it can also be considered an exercise in art appreciation. After several rounds of emails, I finally persuaded her to take a short hike with me out to the preserve and, in fact, our very first "hike" was basically just walking over there and having a look at it. It was then that all the snake talk started. Now, I'm not particularly afraid of snakes or at least it is not a phobia that restricts me from doing anything. In fact on a hike at another mountain preserve many, many years ago a baby rattler was lying across our path, so we avoided that route for the day. No big deal. And in all my hikes since I'd retired, I hadn't once felt a tinge of fear at the thought there might be a rattlesnake somewhere in the preserve. I've seen bunnies and quail and lizards and coyotes and even some burros (not the food kind) out there, and we all just went our separate ways. However, my friend would just not let up on the rattler talk. "My husband said this is the time of year they come out. They like to stretch out on the paths and soak up the sun after the cool morning. If you see a bunny, there's probably a rattler somewhere behind. This time of year is when they're most dangerous because they're molting and their skins can block their vision and they'll strike at anything. Baby rattlers are the most dangerous because they don't know how to control their venom and they inject you with so much you'd probably die. I have a snake stick I'll bring along...."

The night before our first actual hike up into the hills my friend emailed me to cancel because she was going out of town. I knew that that day I could still have a good walk at my normal speed and I expected that walking with her was going to be a little slow going for a while, so it was fine with me. As usual, I set out with my phone and my water at a nice pace into the beautiful cool desert morning air. But something wasn't the same. The specter of the hidden rattlesnake ready to jump out and bite my ankles was situated dead center in my thinking, and all I could think about was keeping my eye out for hidden dangers. My joyous escapade into nature had lost its luster. My happy-go-lucky attitude was gone because I was wearing an invisible straight jacket of unrealistic rattlesnake fear.

God's Word tells us many, many times that we should not fear. Many times it is in the context of trusting God, a God who even notices when a sparrow falls to the ground. How much more will he care and provide for His children? We are also admonished not to be fearful of sharing the truth of the Gospel. My little experience with fear on my hike reminded me of how fear can steal our joy. We can travel this earthly sod watching our feet, frantically waiting and expecting doom, never lifting our eyes to appreciate so many blessings and so much beauty, or we can travel as if we have the best and most blessed tour guide of the ages at our side, ready to steer us clear of hidden dangers, show us the best sights and bring us safely to the end of our journey.

"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." 1 John 4.15 - 4.18

Don't be fearful of anything this world can do to you. Enjoy the journey! It's the only one you get on this planet and it's over before you know it. The next one is a doozy!

le

Converted

A week or so later one of my friends from our funeral group invited me to attend a “church meeting” with her in another town. She called it a charismatic service; I had no idea what that meant. The event happened to fall on the same day as my birthday, so I tried to use that as an excuse to get out of it, but, wouldn’t you know, my husband told me I should go ahead and go with her so I could get out of the house and away from the baby and kids for a day. Maybe I was acting a little crabby and he wanted to get me out of the house? More to be friendly to my new friend than anything else, I decided to go with her.

The service was one of sharing personal stories and times of prayer, but it also had the “charismatic” part of it that was pretty off-putting to me as a Catholic; I frankly just didn’t know what was going on so I tried to ignore that element of the service as I listened. Their “testimonies," one after the other, were of changed and transformed lives and I found myself feeling intrigued and drawn on one hand and angry on the other. I really didn’t want to do what it seemed they had done, and that was to actually accept anything that God would bring into my life once I took the step of faith they had made. I didn’t want to give up drinking and partying. I had a lot of “fun” things in my life that I really didn’t want to give up. My husband and I had plans! I mean, I certainly didn’t want to go to Africa to be a missionary. What if God asked me to give up my husband and children? What if He asked me to give up my life?! It was just too much! But soon I began to realize that God was speaking directly to my heart through the people who stood up to give their “testimonies." I remembered that I had asked God to show me the truth, and person after person stood up to tell their story about becoming “born again” or having “accepted Christ.” My heart began to melt as I finally began to really “hear” the story of the free gift that was offered by Jesus. Funny how I had always known about Jesus dying on the cross, but I really didn’t know that that act had any more particular importance than Noah and the flood or Moses' exodus from Egypt in the litany of bible stories I had heard as a child. I suddenly saw that the whole Bible from beginning to end actually pointed to Jesus! For the first time I saw that it was completely His work and His sacrifice alone that brought salvation, and it had nothing to do with anything I could do, any “good” thing I could perform. I saw that I could never do enough good things to be acceptable to a Holy God. Only by believing on Christ, Who died to take my sins away, could I be made acceptable. At an invitation to receive Christ, an altar call, I felt God drawing me forward and I felt His Spirit whispering in my heart that I could trust Him. Knowing full well that it would change my life completely, knowing that I was trading my old life for His, I accepted His free gift of forgiveness for all the wrong things I had done. I felt completely washed clean and forgiven for the first time in my life and I knew that I had found the right answer. I felt like I was starting my life over again. That was June 14th, 1980.

Since I’ve made my decision to follow Christ, my life has had many ups and downs, but through it all God has been my strength and my comfort, and He has blessed me abundantly in so many ways. I have learned to love His Word as I study and ask Him to change me to have His nature. I have learned to ask Him for forgiveness daily for the sins I still commit, since we struggle with our sinful nature for the rest of our lives here on earth. But I know that in the end, Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient and complete, and by faith and through the assurance of His Holy Word, I believe with my whole heart that someday I will be with Him in heaven. I hope that if you haven’t already, you will now choose Jesus too. Jesus made it simple for us. Ask God for forgiveness for your sins, tell Him you accept the sacrifice Jesus made for you, mean it with your whole heart and tell Him that you want to live for Him, whatever it takes. Then tell someone, and watch the wonderfully bumpy journey begin! You will never regret it. “….because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.” Romans 10.9 – 11

What a joy it would be for me to see you in heaven! Jesus says, quite clearly, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” God bless you, friends.

le

Vote For Antichrist!

Just kidding. In this election year, I hear one candidate being called “Jesus Christ” and “Messiah”…so please forgive me if that captures my attention for a post.
When my state had a caucus, a friend at work asked me which party “He” belonged to, as she wanted to go to vote for him. She didn’t know or care about party affiliation: she just wanted to give him her vote.
And my friend isn’t the only one. This candidate for high (but not THE Highest!) office is inspiring many to support him. He can fill stadiums, just like a rock star.
This world, this cosmos (world system) raises up rock stars, political stars, false messiahs by the boatload.
Christians are residents of Heaven, sojourning here in a foreign land. We are called to be in the world, but not of it. Many times I’ve heard Christians say, “I don’t care who the Anti-Christ turns out to be, as he won’t appear until after the Rapture. I‘ll be out of here.”
Very true. If these are indeed the “End Times”, it is possible that the person known as the Anti-Christ is alive today, and beginning to accumulate power. I’m assuming that he will be charismatic, a great speaker able to rally millions to his side.
I doubt that “THE” Anti-Christ is running for President this year. I wish he were, as that would mean that Christ’s return is imminent. I believe that the Bible is clear in stating that Christ will ‘catch up’ His loved ones before what is termed the Great Tribulation, which is actually God executing Judgment on the Earth.
Read the book of Revelation and see for yourself.
Whatever happens this year, whoever wins the Presidency, God is in charge. My joke about God giving us the President we deserve may come true.

Green Persimmons And Count It All Joy

“Here, taste this.”
“What is it?”
“A fruit-taste it.”
Two minutes of sour spitting and drinking water while my boss laughed at me-I had eaten my first and only bit of green persimmon. It soured my mouth, tasting horrible bad.
I could say that this has begun to seem like a green persimmon year, what with the politics not going as I like, assorted family health issues, war still raging and the economy in the dumps…but even in the midst of all sorts of negatives, we are called to count it all joy, and there is much wisdom in that.
More than anything else, I rejoice that God loves me. That He has my future firmly in His hands, that I need not worry about anything. Not health issues, politics, the multifaceted foolishnesses of Man…nothing. Rather, I count it joy that God has placed me in a good place, given me the duty of taking care of my parents, a great church family, a good job, a great country…
Yes. There is a lot to be thankful to God for. No matter who sits in the White House, no matter whether my health fades (here’s a hint-it will someday) or the entire world seems cockeyed and crazy…God is in charge, and I have nothing to fear. Count it all joy, friends.

About this same time, my husband and I had become friendly with some Mormon missionaries who had appeared at our door proselytizing. They seemed lonely, and so were we, so we invited them in. Eventually we started playing board games with them at our home once a week or so. Before and after our games, they talked to us about Mormonism and I started to feel very troubled. My husband was quite convinced that Mormonism was not the right religion, perhaps more because he had been raised to believe that Catholicism was the only right religion than that he had any true conviction about it, but I wasn't so sure. I was very confused about why I believed what I believed, and quite honestly, what did I believe? On one hand I was becoming friendly with these women from my church who seemed so sincere about loving Jesus and who were so friendly and loving to me, and on the other I had these missionaries telling us that the Mormon church was the only right church. I began to feel more and more pressed to decide what I believed. I began to ask myself why I had let anyone into my life to disturb my comfortable status. Certainly, before all these different elements began inflicting themselves on my psyche, I was quite content just to live and let live when it came to religious things. Why were all these people suddenly bombarding me with disquieting philosophies and ultimatums? Then I also remembered my sister’s admonitions that I had to be “born again,” and I had no idea what that really meant. I was utterly confused. Little did I realize that God was working a miracle in me through His Holy Spirit. He was knocking on the door of my heart; He was preparing me to be pulled out of the muck and mire.
I did something then that was very out of character for me, I guess. I stood at my kitchen window, stared up at the sky, and asked God with all the sincerity I could muster to show me the truth. What did it mean to be a Christian? Did I really have to make some sort of decision? Why wasn't just going to church and being good enough to get me to heaven? I didn't know how He was going to answer me, but today I know that I asked the perfect questions, and God was just waiting.
To be continued...
le

Thinning The Heard

Ah well. Politics happens, and from time to time I might make a small mention of it here; le is always welcome to post on any subject, including politics, so if politics happens, it happens, and what the world is going through in 2008 will show up in posts. This election is already more distasteful than I like, but maybe that’s just me.
Guliani and Edwards have stepped down, Huckabee is being marginalized by reality; I miss Dennis Kucinich. I really do-he was an honest contrarian, wearing his tin foil hat around his heart.
H. Clinton and B. Obama are left on the left, J. McCain the muddle and M. Romney the right.
I trust that whoever God decides to place in the White House, the country will continue to be fractured along political ideologies. This election is important; those ideologies are what are being debated, personified in a handful of politicians.
Appeal to God to have governance over not only your life, but your country and world. Submitting to His authority puts all of Creation into the proper perspective. His.

I Am The Grateful Dead

No, not Jerry and Mickey and company-they tour only in our memories now. I mean that I am grateful to God, and dead to this world, so to speak. As Paul said in Philippians:
“20For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”
The temporal is temporary; while we are here, living for God, we live, breathe, fall, get up, make mistakes and grow old. Sometimes we do good; often we mess up and it comes back to us that we are simply sinners saved by Grace. It is His Righteousness which grants us entrance to Heaven, and none of our own.
“15Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” 1 John 2:15-17
Never give up, friends. I know that it is hard not to heed the siren call of the world. We are immersed in it daily, but the World doesn’t stand a chance against the Word.
Meaning that He Who has begun a good work in us will continue to perfect us, draw us closer to Himself, and away from the world.
Yes, we fall. Without His Spirit indwelling us, we would be ground to sinful mincemeat, with no hope of ever entering the presence of God in Heaven. But Greater is He Who is in you than he who is in the world.
The body of our humble state will be transformed into conformity with the body of His glory.
May God continue to Bless you, friends, to lift you up when you are down, enable and strengthen you for the coming days. It’s going to be Wonderful.

Wedding

My youngest son is getting married this weekend.

It reminds me of how often Jesus taught and talked about marriage. It is recorded in Scripture several times that the religious leaders of the day used questions about marriage to try to trip Jesus up, to try to get Him to say something they could use against Him and have Him killed. Jesus also used a marriage feast to teach His followers about the Kingdom of heaven:

"The Kingdom of heaven is like this. Once there was a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. He sent his servants to tell the invited guests to come to the feast, but they did not want to come. So he sent other servants with this message for the guests: 'My feast is ready now; my steers and prize calves have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast!' Mat 22.2 - 4

When Jesus revealed that He knew that the woman at the well was living with a man without being married to him, she asked a controversial question on another topic. Because, you see, Jesus knew her. She perceived that He knew everything about her from beginning to end and that made her uncomfortable. When He made it clear that there was nothing she could hide from Him, she tried to change the subject.

You're invited to the wedding feast for the Son. Are you trying to change the subject so that you don't have to face the real question -- will you attend? Don't be like the poor saps in Matthew 22.5 who paid no attention and went about their business! Accept the invitation! Be part of the party, not part of the teeth gnashers.

See you after the wedding!

le

Etcetera

Having gone through my high school years relatively unscathed by my choices, I was under the mistaken impression that bad things really couldn't happen to me. It is putting it mildly to say the pregnancy shocked me into facing reality and almost immediately thrust me into adulthood. Looking back now, I see the gentle hand of God, mercifully protecting me in so many situations. I remember being in a circumstance that was almost certainly escalating into a sexual assault, but in my drunken stupor, I started to sing and the guy just got too weirded out, I guess, and left me alone. I remember waking up once under a truck after an all-night party when I heard the driver start the ignition, and just barely getting out from underneath in time. I remember being abandoned by my rides at parties at locations far outside of our town, and just getting into vehicles with anyone who would get me home. I remember hearing about kids being busted at a pot smoking party I had just left before the police arrived. But one can only go so long without reaping the harvest of one's bad decisions. I knew an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was going to be quite humiliating for my family, but even more so for my boyfriend's. They were very involved in their church, and his parents already didn't like me. I wouldn't like my son's girlfriend to behave or dress anything like I did, so now I can certainly understand how they felt.
It was 1974, so Roe v. Wade had already been decided, and legal abortion clinics were popping up, even in my remote neck of the woods. Being a good liberal, I was all for women having a "choice," but even so I couldn't bring myself to think about me having an abortion, and my husband-to-be, bless his heart, wouldn't even consider it; he considered abortion to be murder. In a magical moment, certainly a moment that I can now see that God intervened in His sovereign way, we decided to do the “right thing.” I dropped out of college, we married, and then we faced a daunting vision of adulthood with a child and very little money. My husband struggled to keep food on the table, to finish college, and to begin a teaching career. Any dreams I had for my own career as a music teacher were set aside as I quickly realized my life was no longer my own, that I had to devote myself to my children (another one quickly came into the picture) so that they would be successful people. I was not very happy with my own situation, but I loved my children and my husband, and I saw that my own choices had brought these situations into my life. My husband managed to finish college and found a teaching job in Montana, far away from friends and family.

A couple years later in the small Montana town where my husband had taken his second teaching position, while I was in the hospital having my third baby, my husband signed me up at the local church to sing at funerals. I thought it was a peculiar idea, but he persuaded me that it would be something to do besides watch children and I might make a friend, so I became agreeable to it. My husband had bought me a guitar a year earlier when I had resumed some college music classes at the last town we were in, so I pulled it out to learn a few chords in case that would be useful, and I ended up being the "accompanist" for the several other women who had signed up for funeral duty as well. Before we finished our first meeting together at my home, one of the women suggested we pray. I thought that was odd and it made me very uncomfortable. Then even more strangely, they prayed just as if Jesus were in the room with us and was our friend, instead of the sort of omnipresent disinterested God to whom you just prayed memorized prayers in church. These women had a different sort of understanding of who God was. For days afterward I was bothered and aggravated by the whole situation I had let myself get talked into.

To be continued...

le

The Winter Of Our Content

“14Do all things without grumbling or disputing; 15so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, 16holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. 17But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. 18You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.” Philippians 2:14-18

Ouch. In a world full of trouble, the first emotion which bubbles up is discontent, which sets us to grumbling.
It’s also the very first impulse of the flesh which we must fight against, so as to prove ourselves blameless and innocent, children of God.
What does a child of God have to complain about? We’ve been re-united with our Father in Heaven, will live Praising God through all of eternity, as co-heirs with Christ will have Everything beyond everything we could ever comprehend, and then some idiot cuts me off in traf…wait a minute!
To complain is human. To …uhm…uncomplain (?) is divine.
Complaining casts aspersions upon the One Who gives us Life.
Look at Paul writing in the above verse: “even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.”
Paul had been stoned, jailed, shipwrecked, been an outcast from his own people, had known sickness and infirmity with that thorn in his side, but he lived to Praise God and share the Gospel. Further on in Philippians we find:
“4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 9The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
I wish I always ‘let my gentle spirit be known to all men’. God is continuing to work in my life, has made me a better person than I was, and will improve me in the future.
Praise God from Whom all Blessings flow.

Continuing

I spent the last half of my high school years making the transition from nice girl to bad girl in grand style, at least in my own estimation. I still managed to keep my grades up and have some sense for what it would take to get into a good college and make something of my life. But with all my extracurricular activities, I was certainly tempting fate as to whether I would make it there alive. My parents were at a loss when their little girl started staying out all night and coming home smelling of smoke and whatever. I managed to hide a lot from them and, quite frankly, I don't think they wanted to know or would have known what to do about me if they had confronted me. And I really didn't care much if I hurt them or not. I also continued, if you can believe it, to sing in a guitar mass at my church on Saturday afternoons. I don't know why, thinking back on it, and I guess my church didn't care if their worship people lived any sort of Godly life. Either that or I was better at hiding things than I thought. Practically as soon as I left mass, I would jump in a car to go to some party and drink and party half the night. I can't even imagine now living such a duplicitous existence. Imagine having such a seared conscience that you could be in church at four in the afternoon and within hours somewhere else doing any immoral thing you wanted without a moment of guilt. My girlfriends, whom I had always considered a lot looser than I and I also thought were all doing likewise, started to express shock at my blasé attitude regarding premarital sex and drugs. I just thought I was being very modern and liberated and fun!

I don't think I need to mention any more of the things I did during those years. Some of you are living that life right now and the rest of you can imagine what I'm talking about. During this time I met my husband-to-be, who would be quite mortified if I wrote about him in my blog, so I will forego any discussion of our life together during that time. I finished high school and made my plans to start college in the fall. College began and soon I discovered I was pregnant.

To be continued...

le

My Story

I was raised in a home that today might be considered quite religious. We went to Catholic church every Sunday, and I was brought up with religious training. When I was very young I remember kneeling at our bed and praying before bedtime with my Mom and siblings -- “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Mommy and Daddy, Teri and Jeri, Andee, Jobie and Robbie, and Grandpa and Grandma Greff, and Grandpa and Grandma Liebnow. Amen.” Reading that prayer now, it must have been a little scary at age 3 going to bed every night with my last thought being dying in my bed.
I spent most of my youth in confusion about God and how He fit into real life. I knew that I loved God or, more accurately, that I should love God, but as the years went by, it seemed to me that He was just a far off God who did not actually interact with people, although He used to. Now He simply had requirements that we could ignore if we desired. Mass and catechism and sacraments became merely obligations imposed by my mom with a lot of ineffective guilt and improbable divine retribution attached. I became very disillusioned about church and God. My home was moral and loving, but there was never any talk about God being a part of how one was to deal with daily matters. Prayers slowly discontinued as we all objected as being too old for that sort of thing. God was only a Sunday thing, a being Who in my mind was capricious in granting wishes and really quite powerless to stop anyone from doing any evil act. Oh, in the Bible He was great, but in my life and family, He was of little influence, it seemed. I was raised to believe that kindness and goodness were virtues that everyone should exhibit, but the more I was unkind and not good, the more I despised my own character, and in my bruised pride I became confused about what was right and wrong. It was much easier to imagine that society could decide what was wrong and right than to try to follow an overabundance of antiquated rules that no one else was following. School and society seemed to indicate that believing in God and attending church were old-fashioned activities, and for losers, and I certainly didn’t want to be uncool. My life soon began to revolve around trying to have “fun” and be “happy.” I mean, what was the point of doing otherwise? For me fun seemed to mean partying and running around, drugs and drinking--in general, pandering to every whim of my conflicted flesh. After a time of indulging in these sorts of activities I noticed that my conscience didn't even bother me anymore concerning them and I grew less and less worried about appearing to be a person with bad morals. Anything went as long as I wasn't hurting anyone else! My younger sister, in the meantime, had become a “Christian” and seemed to be inordinately concerned that we weren’t all going to be going to heaven after we died. She had the nerve to insinuate that we weren't quite up to par when it came to being Christians. We all thought she was quite arrogant, since clearly, we were Christians! We belonged to a church, didn’t we? We were baptized. We hadn't murdered anyone, right? We weren't criminals. What more could anyone expect?

To be continued...

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