Sadness

Today the Supreme Court started hearing arguments for and against same-sex marriage.  I will not express my views, as that is irrelevant to my post.  What is relevant is what I saw being posted on Facebook all day.  Hatred on both sides of the issue.  Yes, BOTH sides.  Though, I will say that I saw less hateful posts from those against same-sex marriage than I did from those that are for it.  This saddens me.

I saw some people posting ‘verses’ of the Bible trying to prove how racist and full of hate the Bible is, thereby implying that anyone that follows must be full of hate.  Here’s the problem with that; they are not reading the entire passage, and therefore taking it completely out of context.  That is one of my pet peeves.  If you are going to criticize a book and make accusations about it, at least read the whole thing and study it.  That way you can at least know what you are talking about.  Otherwise, you are going to sound like someone full of hate and animosity because you just don’t know.

There are very few beliefs that I will counter, because I don’t know enough about them.  Besides, it is not up to me to judge those beliefs or that person.  I’m only to present the truth, according to the Bible, to strive to live as Jesus lived, and to love all.  These are not easy things to do.  I struggle with one or more of these items constantly.  I am tested consistently and there are times that I fail.  But I do try to learn from it and move on.

Those that hate, or try to incite me to anger and hate them, honestly, I feel sorry for them.  I occasionally pray for them.  I probably should pray for them daily, however, I tend to forget because in my prayer, I spend so much time thanking God for all that he provides for me.  I’ve been so blessed, and God continues to bless me, that I cannot thank him enough.  God has given me a wonderful job, a house, a wonderful family, a fantastic church family, wonderful friends, and has provided everything that I needed.  Why wouldn’t I be thankful for that?

Even hubby’s migraine for the past 19 months is a blessing.  I have no idea how, yet, but it will reveal itself at some point.  When God has deemed it time for the migraine to go away, it will.  I have complete faith in that.  And yes, I say that knowing that we are trying to get him approved for a surgery that is supposed to help him.  It is still in God’s hands.

So, sadness is my word for the day.  I am saddened by the hatred I see around me and many that don’t think it is hatred, they think they are ‘educating’ those around them.  Instead, they are trying to bully those with a different point of view.  I feel for them, and I shall pray for them.

The power of prayer

Most know that my husband has had one migraine for 7 months now.  Please note that that is not migraines, as in it comes and goes; one constant migraine for 7 months.  His good days, the pain is about a 6-7.  Most days, it’s an 8 or more.  He’s been to doctors, specialist, etc. Nothing has helped.  Because it’s been keeping him for church, he started going to the Men’s Bible Study at our church that meets very early in the morning, once a week.  It has helped his spirit, but obviously, not his migraine.  A few weeks ago, he started meeting with our pastor after the study and the breakfast that the men go to afterwards, to discuss the spiritual warfare he is under.  Last week, during one of these meetings, pastor asked my husband to come to church today to have the congregation pray over him.

Growing up, this was not something I was used to participating in.  But this is my new church and after attending this morning, I understood more of why pastor wanted to do this.  Pastor started out this morning, explaining that as a church, we have been praying for him individually.  He firmly believes that as a church, we need to be praying as the body of Christ, as a whole.  This isn’t about anyone there healing my husband, it’s about God healing him and the body of Christ asking for him to do so.  This is the same idea from the NT where the apostles healed in Jesus’ name.  I do believe that this will work.  Maybe not the first time, but by faith, I do believe that it will.

While our church family was coming up to us and praying over us, yes, on occasion, both of us were being prayed over, I couldn’t help the  emotion that was flowing out of me.  I was a blubbering mess.  I haven’t cried so much in a long time.  It was not a bad cry.  All these wonderful people were showing such love and care for us.  It was so touching.  I’m tearing up just thinking about it.   It was a very interesting experience, to say the least.

I am very thankful to all that were there, and especially thankful to those that felt the Lord speak to them to come lay hands on my husband and me, and extremely thankful to all that fought the snow today to do this, and didn’t even know it was going to happen.  I love all of you and you will always hold a special place in my heart.

Prayer

Tonight I went to church expecting a study.  Well, it’s the new year and pastor is determined to have us being a praying church.  Which is fine, that’s what we are supposed to do, pray.  I did not grow up praying out loud a lot, with the exception of the standard Lord’s Prayer, Meal Prayer, and Bedtime prayer, which were always the same.  So, doing a prayer circle and praying open form, is very hard for me.  I’m just not used to it.

To ‘inspire’ us, I’m sure, pastor provided 102 quotes about prayer.  No, I’m not going to list all of them.  I will mention the first one, which is one of pastor’s favorites:

“You can do more than pray after you have prayed; but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed.” – A.J. Gordon

To me, that means to pray first and foremost.You can do plenty afterwards, but you can’t do more than praying until you have prayed.

Periodically, I’ll post one or two of the quotes, but tonight, I’ll leave it at just the one.

Pray first and foremost, then follow through.

Good night.