True Friends

Having friends can be a tricky proposition in my opinion. I think the trick is to accept that there are some friends that are more on the outer edges of my life. Some friends stay on the outside because of distance, although social media and email make that list much shorter than it used to be. It so easy to stay in touch these days, if a person really wants to that is.

Some friends on the outside are there because you just don’t have time or the inclination to really stay in touch. I have friends that I only see every couple of years, but it is like we were just together, and I know when we are apart they have a great love and concern for me and vice versa. Theses are also the friends that when they get even a whiff of something bad going on in my life will ring me up, or send me a message on Facebook asking me how I am and if I need prayers.

Some friends stay on the outside because of selfishness. These are the friends that only ring you when they want something from you, or want to talk about themselves. The kind of friend that never asks about you, or very rarely will fit in a quick, “so how are you?”, right before interrupting your response to correlate you current life to their experience thereby turning the conversation back to them.

Also in this category are the manipulative friends, the ones that will acts as though you are their only friend when they talk to you, which isn’t often. These are the friends that usually want something from you, like emotional support for their less than stellar actions, or to share some news. i.e., I haven’t talked to you in months but I am getting married or having a baby, or am trying to right all the wrongs in the world.

Then there are the full time friends. We can usually count them on one hand because they are few and far between. They transcend ages and backgrounds. Although sometimes it is the similarity in backgrounds, whether traumatic or euphoric that will bind you. Some of these types of friends will be there for you no matter what. They know what is going on in your life and accept you for who you are even if they don’t agree.

There are even friends like this that go a step further. They are the friends that are honest with you. I have two friends like that. They love me enough and are righteous in character enough to be honest with me, and would happily and not so happily, kick me in the rear end if I started to wander from the path and God’s way. These are the friends I rely on for truth and support. They are the ones that know me and know what is really going on in my life and my heart. They are really more sisters than mere friends and I am so blessed to have them. I honestly thank God for them and for their honesty. In a world where the Enemy is CONSTANTLY trying to ruin us and pull us from our path, we need friends that will truly stand by us and strengthen us.

I have been blessed with many friends in many different degrees of all these categories. Some are better friends to me than I am to them, and some vice versa. I think the important part, and the wisest is to recognize each friend for who they are, and accept the limitations each might have. When we have unreal expectations is when we head down a path of discontent and anger. I have learned this the hard way, believe me.

I guess the key is really to be the best friend I can be and relax in the truth that it will come back to me from the friends that matter.

Look at Me, Look at Me!

I am re-reading Stormie Omartian’s book The Power of A Praying Woman and I am getting even more out of it the FOURTH time around. Something that has stayed in my mind is her discussion on good ways to tell if you walk with God is shallow. Several of these hit close to home for me, so I thought I would share the five she lists.

1. If you follow the Lord for only what He can do for you.

2. If you only pray to God when things are tough or you need something.

3. If you get mad at God or disappointed in Him when He doesn’t do what you want.

4. If you love God only because of what He does.

5. If you think you have to beg God or twist His arm to get Him to answer your prayers.

I have been getting so much out of this book it is almost like I never read it before. It is interesting the things that God shows us when we ask Him. I have realized that I sometimes have a wrong attitude in my serving at church. Too often I do things with the idea that I will be able to show God I am doing good things all in an effort to earn the blessings. I am horrified that I was using my service as some kind of yard stick to show God, look at me, look at me…have I done enough now? Am I good enough now?

I will never do enough, or be good enough, that was the whole point of Christ’s sacrifice. I am very grateful that God revealed this to me, and humbled by it. Funny how that works, huh?

Does God Have Shortages?

I received an e-mail from a friend of mine not that long ago talking about how she felt there was a shortage of godly men in the church, and that we should be praying that God would call more men into the Church to be husband for us single girls.

On first read I totally agreed. Seriously, how many conversations have I had, or heard of about men just not having their act together spiritually, mentally, or economically? But then I started to think (I know, I know, never a good thing! :) Anyway, I started to think about the idea that there is a shortage of godly men in the church.

Does God have shortages?

Is God scraping the bottom of the barrel? And not that we shouldn’t pray for more people to be called by God, but is it something that just has to be done because God has run out of single men He can work with in the Church?

I don’t think so. I don’t think God suffers from shortages in this area. I think He is more than capable of working with the single men in the Church. There are so many great single men that I know. Yes, some of them could use some work, who couldn’t? I think a lot of the reasoning on the idea of a godly man shortage is that many times women want to marry men like their fathers, or older men they look up to. The major problem with that ideal is that it took those older men years to become the men we that know now! It is unfair to hold young single men to an ideal that took other men 30 plus years to obtain!

As a single girl in the Church I have had many a conversation about the sad state of the men in the church. I have heard story after story about some guy being a jerk, or just not having his act together. But is that really fair? I know plenty of women in the church, including myself, that have some big areas in our own lives that need to be worked on. We as women are not somehow exempt because we are women.I think some of the feelings from the single women come from having to wait. Patience is a virtue, but it ain’t easy! As we wait, we think, and as we think, we complain, and as we complain, we can and sometimes do develop a root of bitterness.

What are we waiting for? We are waiting for that guy that clicks, for that guy that feels so drawn to us he can’t help but pursue us. We hear the stories about a shy or aloof single guy in the church that met a woman and it was like a light went off in his head. And where in all those previous years he never pursued a girl, now with the right one he can’t help himself. He found the one.

Sometimes waiting to be found is the hardest part, but I still think about Genesis 22:19, which says, “And God remembered Rachel”. God has not forgotten about His daughters. He has not reached the bottom of the barrel and isn’t deaf to our tears and praying.

I think the important thing for me to remember is that trials of patience are still trials, which means that they have to be endured. There are lessons to be learned from trials, especially long running trials that tend to lose the clarity of the lessons to be learned because they are not trial easily overcome, but are continual.

As for me, well…I just keep trudging along, trying to make sense of it all as I pull up some of those bitter roots.

Ephesians 12:12-15

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled…

Ecclesiastes 7:25-26

I applied my heart to know,

To search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things,

To know the wickedness of folly,

Even of foolishness and madness.

And I find more bitter than death

The woman whose heart is snares and nets,

Whose hands are fetters.

He who pleases God shall escape from her,

But the sinner shall be trapped by her.

Sewing

It is cool patterns and ideas like this that really make me want to get back into my sewing (I want that purse too!!!) I have a weakness for all things vintage and would ABSOLUTELY love to make myself a swing inspired dress. As a matter of fact I have the material and the pattern already. So, what is holding me back? It's a big project? Nope, I want to reach my goal weight first. =) Typical girlie reason, I know, but still!

If anyone lost era inspired clothes like these, all the way back to the Romantic and Rennaissance era this is the website called Sense and Sensibility Patterns, then click on Patterns, to check them out.

I made these from patterns from this website.

I wish I could take another sewing class at the Adult Education Center, but alas, I don't like the teacher.... =( Guess, I will have to hound my mother instead.

God Cares

This is a brilliant video from our Church. It is short, poignant and amazing!!

Keepers At Home

This is one of my favorite blogs by my friend Julie. We met on a forum and she has been a true comfort to me. I am so excited that God has answered many many people's prayers for she and her husband. They are going to have a baby!! God is generous and so good. I was just reading her post about the picture frame and it gave me such a spiritual lift that I had to share. =) I have something here at home that has been a reminder of my greatest wish and prayer, but I had put it away some months ago. I am getting it back out and and putting it where I can look at it everyday. Reminders are a good thing!!

Poor Patrick

I do not celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I think if Patrick knew people were worshipping him, he would be sad and mortified! The following is an great explanation of who Patrick was, and also the little known fact that he was a SABBATH KEEPER!! I don't have the website I got this off of, but I could probably find it, if someone wants it.
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“And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” —2 Timothy 4:4

Maewyn Succat’s legacy to Ireland is both ironic and inspirational. Born to a Christian family around A.D. 380 on the banks of the Clyde in Scotland, he was kidnapped by a gang of ruffians, smuggled to Ireland, and sold as a slave to a cattle and swine herder.

At the time of his capture, Succat was unconvinced about following Jesus. By the age of 15, the troubled boy was given to the earthly pleasures of lust, hate, and deceit, and he ignored the teachings of his father, a respected church leader. Succat believed this selfish incredulity doomed him, albeit temporarily: “It was according to our deserts, because we drew back from God and kept not His precepts.”

But during his six years of harsh captivity, wearing rags for clothing and with minimal shelter from pounding rains and frigid nights, he soon gave his life to God. During long evenings of endless hunger and immense suffering, he would hear the voice of his mother and father urging him to follow Jesus. Finally, he began to listen rather than just hear them. And at last, he realized there was something more to life than just himself.Gazing into the starry heavens, he said to God on the evening of his conversion, “I will arise, and go to my Father." Soon after, he escaped and at last returned to his homeland, ready to follow heaven’s call. Invigorated by his new devotion, Succat found and joined a church whose voice in history is unfortunately, though not surprisingly, silent to the general public.

Against the grain of the day’s religious teachings, the Celtic Church not only kept the Sabbath as holy, they followed God’s health laws and practiced baptism by immersion. They believed God’s Law was paramount, and they would only give their allegiance to Christ. In short, they believed there was no difference between obeying the Law and ultimate morality—faithfully obeying God’s Word was the ultimate sign of their love and devotion.

Succat quickly rose in the ranks of this church, fighting against the onset of paganism from the outlying Briton isles and Europe. Sometime in his late twenties, he began to dream of the green island he once regretfully called home. He dreamed of how the heathens there suffered under economic and spiritual poverty—and eventually he believed God was calling him to return to Erin, which once held him prisoner, to set it free with His Word. He followed without hesitation.

The conversion of the island is both baffling and miraculous. Succat led a band of like minded believers across the isle, establishing churches that would glorify the kingdom of God by expressing their faith through obedience to the Decalogue. Queen Margaret wrote about this and other “peculiar” practices of the growing Celtic Church, complaining '”They are accustomed … to neglect reverence for [Sundays].”Though the major religious leaders of the day threatened, cajoled, and attempted to otherwise provoke allegiance to their doctrines, Succat’s church continually turned these temptations away. Because of his strict adherence to God’s desires, Succat is believed to be directly responsible for the establishment of more than 350 churches and the conversion of over 120,000 converts.

In the centuries to follow, Succat’s legacy as a faithful Sabbath-keeper would quickly be shrouded with half-truths and mysticism due to the eventual overthrow of the Celtic Church. (The victors attempted to change history.) Indeed, the ire of all of Europe eventually besieged the tiny, peculiar island until it capitulated and adopted more culturally acceptable norms under force.

Succat is still revered and celebrated as few others—he is as much a cultural icon today as he was when he conquered a nation for Christ. Succat is worthy of remembrance and honor—though he, throughout his writings, directed all the glory to his Savior. Sadly, the truth behind his powerful work is twisted and dimly lit, but that doesn’t mean the real truth can’t be told. Ireland prospered in peace for centuries as it obeyed God’s commands by Succat’s lead. After it incorporated unholy doctrines and practices, it fell into despair and was subjugated by oppression and cruelty. If you haven’t guessed it yet, Succat is better known by the name Patrick of Ireland—or even more familiarly, Saint Patrick.Other interesting facts....Patrick believed that Christianity should be founded with the home and the family as its strength. Too often the Christian organizations of that age were centered in celibacy. This was not true of the Irish Church and its Celtic daughters in Great Britain, Scotland, and on the Continent. The Celtic Church, as organized and developed under Patrick, permitted its clergy to marry.

The absence of celibacy in the Celtic Church gives added proof to the fact that the believers had no connection with the church at Rome. Thus Dr. J. H. Todd writes: “He [Patrick] says nothing of Rome, or of having been commissioned by Pope Celestine. He attributed his Irish apostleship altogether to an inward call, which he regarded as a divine command.”

One of the strongest proofs that Patrick did not belong to papal Christianity is found in the historical fact that for centuries Rome made every effort to destroy the church Patrick had founded. Jules Michelet writes of Boniface, who was the pope’s apostle to the Germans about two hundred years after Patrick: “His chief hatred is to the Scots [the name equally given to the Scotch and Irish], and he especially condemns their allowing priests to marry.”

Patrick rejected the union of church and state. More than one hundred years had passed since the first world council at Nicaea had united the church with the empire. Patrick rejected this model. He followed the lesson taught in John’s Gospel when Christ refused to be made a king. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”(John 18:36.)

Food for thought, huh?