I feel like my thoughts have been everywhere today...some good, some not so good...sigh...some carried over from yesterday. Let's see romance, God, the perfect black shoes, raunchy culture...not to mention cooking and sewing.
By the way, I burnt the tips of my fingers melting chocolate. Well...they're not burnt-burnt, but definitely very red. And I still haven't reconciled with my sewing machine who insisted on continuing breaking the thread after I adjusted the tension and rethreaded. It made me think, 'No wonder why people buy their clothes.' Although there is something to say about making/designing your own clothes. It's a finished project you can be proud in. Although...I over did it with all my sewing projects and dug myself into a little hole. So, my fears of failure and the need to strive to show my worth are continually having to be fought. I refuse to return to that place where the walls in my room seem to be pressing into me...ah! the pressure!
And so, a conversation from last night regarding the biblicalness and validity, so to speak of the believers pray (by the way, this is the God thinking just in case you didn't catch that) briefly remained in my mind this morning. Just for those of you who are interested what I mean, here's what I mean: Today's Christian culture has this what we call "believer's prayer," which people pray when they come to Christ. Last Sunday was Easter Sunday and my pastor's nephew gave his testimony, which quite amazingly showed God's grace and desire to restore people to himself. (Even as I'm writing this my mind is going ADD! I just returned from looking for and adding pictures to my photobucket. Aahh!) However, the nephew had come to a climax in this life (thus far) and said he made a deal with God that if God worked out the details of a certain situation then he'd never leave God. Sequently, the Lord worked out the details and the nephew said, "And I've never left him since."
The first thing that popped into my head was, 'But did he pray the prayer!' Don't worry, guys...because right after I realized I thought that I laughed out loud...in my head, of course. Does the Bible ever talk about a believer's prayer? In the Gospels or Epistles? No. When Jesus healed people and said, "your sins are forgiven" did he ever say, "Wait!---first pray this prayer then you're all good." Umm, nope. So where did we get this believer's prayer anyway? Which lead the conversation to James 2:14-20 (and continuing) that talks about faith without works is dead. (I'm now realizing that this thought alone is quite long.) And that if you truly believe something your faith will be manifested in what you do/how you live your life. Which led to question: what about those people that say, "but I've prayed the prayer!" but there is no evidence, no fruit in what they say they believe...they live in the same way they lived without Christ. Ultimately, no human has a say on a person's salvation---thank the Lord!---but all evidence would point to no---that their faith is dead.
Whew! That thought is done...but I'm looking out the window and I do hope that is rains.
So, I'm sure some of you are thinking, 'What the heck did she mean by raunchy culture?' Well...it's actually very interesting. Our [pop] culture is raunchy...very much so, no denying it. There's this book I came across through a few different websites last night, it's called Female Chauvinist Pigs : Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. All I'm going to say, is what I've read from reviews and pertaining articles is that this book is quite thought-provoking in relation to our culture, which definitely needs redressing. Oh, by the way that author is Ariel Levy, contributing editor of New York magazine. I just came across this, but thought it also might be an intersting read A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue by Wendy Shalit.
On romance...I did receive this lovely haiku today.
And then I had this thought today, 'Would my younger self have liked me now? Would she have liked how I turned out? What would would have happened if I had gone to England to study cinematics? Or became a fashion designer and moved to NY? What if...what if..." Then, I thought if I hadn't been where I have...then I wouldn't be where I am now. And then, I also thought...that none of those things would ever have happened, because God already had everything planned...there is more detail in that thought that I'm not going into now...I was on the phone...
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