evil in the world

Last night, our discussion at Alpha was about how to resist evil. It was awesome to have this topic after the hugeness of our Holy Spirit Weekend (where 4 people - including Sweet Katie - accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!!) but I came away from this meeting with an general feeling of unrest.

I absolutely believe that satan is real and that there is a tremendous amount of evil in the world. I've seen the evil with my own eyes, and even if I hadn't, it's in the Bible which is 100% truth and God's word to us, so that would be enough for me anyway. I just wanted to get that out there before I wrote about anything else.

Tim Barker was our speaker. He's a pastor here in the Katy/West Houston area as well as the accountability partner of our head pastor Jim Leggett. I have the utmost respect for Jim and thus Tim. I felt like he made some really awesome points, about praying the armor of God on yourself and your loved ones weekly if not daily (the pieces of this armor - the Belt of Truth, the Breastplate of Righteousness, The Gospel Shoes of Peace, the Shield of Faith, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit - are outlined in Ephesians 6:10-18). He gave several illustrations about the power of Scripture, and he even offered up a very practical way to defend yourself when you feel satan attacking you (pray for someone who doesn't know Christ. It pisses the devil off BIG TIME. He'd rather leave you alone than risk losing one of his souls).

In our small group, Kevin made a great point. Being aware that there is evil in the world and that satan will try to attack you is kind of like being told that at some point, someone is going to hit you in the face, and you need to be ready for it. No one wants to be hit in the face. It sucks. We also talked about if evil comes from God or from the devil. I personally believe, based on the Job precedent, that evil comes from satan. All of those things that Job endured, losing all of his possessions, his entire family dying, getting nasty boils, etc, were the work of satan, and not God. But his faith was STRENGTHENED. I believe that's the point of it. It's like Dolly Parton (yea, I'm gonna quote her) said, "You can't have a rainbow without any rain." Well, Eve bought the devil's lie in the garden and subsequently, we all get to endure evil in our lives. That's just the reality of it. Here's the part I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. Kevin and I disagree on this part. He doesn't believe that your circumstances per say are actually evil. I believe that a large portion of circumstances are rooted in evil. For instance, I don't believe that living with my parents, while I'm not happy about it, is evil, but I believe that the choices Denver made that led to me living with my parents are rooted in evil. There will always be exceptions, like getting laid off because the economy is bad, etc, but I don't agree that it's right to say that circumstances aren't really evil. What do you think? Can someone help me understand this one?


In other news, my mom was readmitted to the hospital Sunday night with an infection in her surgical wound. After a tremendous amount of drama, she had a 2nd surgery this morning to clean out the wound and drain it. We're hoping that plus hardcore antibiotics takes care of it, and she makes it home for good soon and starts the recovery process for reals.

Hello from our Alpha retreat!

I love love love my Alpha group. Before the first session, they told us that God puts together the group that He wants together. It's absolutely true. All 4 of the other girls who are in my group and on this retreat are in my room with me right now (Skyleigh is my roommate but Ana, Katie, and Laura are just cool girls hanging out with us) and we're sharing stuff and having a great time. We're having so much fun, in fact, that the people in the room next to us changed rooms because we were laughing so loud.

Earlier today, when I was getting ready to come up here, I was thinking about a statement I heard earlier this week. "Jesus loves you, but He loves everyone." They tried to make it sound like that was a bad thing. That's the point! Jesus loves everyone. He loves every single one of us, regardless of who we are and what we've been and done. We can never be good enough for Him to love us, but He died for us anyway. Just marinate on that.

I'm gonna go have some more bonding time with my girls.

* yawn *

Y'all, I'm tired. Physically. I am just exhausted. I have been all week. Its bizarre. Maybe its sympathy for Eryn, or maybe it's just my hormones, but I feel like I'm pregnant! I have cramps and pains in the right places, I'm just tired all the time, and I want to eat everything. Don't start thinking anything - we all know where babies come from and that isn't happenin' for this lady right now. I have a meeting on Tuesday to hopefully get Medicaid. If I get Medicaid, then I can go see a doctor about this weirdness! Wouldn't that be amazing?!

I'm probably not going to blog about extensively about the wedding since it's been a week and no longer feels all that fresh. Sorry, I know you're crushed. Feel free to ask if you really want to know. Basically, we had an amazing time. Everything was beautiful. The DJ was AWFUL and complaints have been filed about him (I mean, he violated the contract, ignored the timeline we gave him 2 months ago which means things got left out, and then had the balls to wait until the morning of the wedding to get the music together so he called Bunny at 10am ON HER WEDDING DAY to tell her there was a problem with the song she and Silver Fox had selected for their 1st dance! WAY unprofessional, pal.) Our airbrush tans looked so gross at the rehearsal but after we'd all gotten to shower and the color had set, we looked bronze and fantastic for the wedding. Pictures will be posted to facebook in the next day or so, so I'll swipe some and post them here for your viewing pleasure.

I've spent the vast majority of my week either passed out, taking care of my dad, or up at the hospital with Mom. Her surgery on Monday went well, she was moved to the rehab hospital on Thursday night, and she's looking at being released on either April 2nd or 3rd. I'm personally hoping it's either the 2nd or before noon on the 3rd, since I'm heading to the Woodlands on the 3rd for our Alpha Holy Spirit Retreat (more about that in a minute). I have to leave Katy between 4 and 4:30 at the latest, so that could be cutting it VERY close!

The Alpha Retreat. God has HUGE things planned for that weekend, and I'm pretty stoked. I mean, He's already shown me so much this far in the course, and that weekend is pretty intense. I had lunch with Kristen (the Alpha Coordinator for our church) on Wednesday to get filled in on all the leader roles and info about it, and I must admit, I'm overwhelmed a little. I've been praying that God would give me the confidence to not let me let myself get in His way, for me to focus on being open and letting the Spirit move through me as opposed to get nervous about praying the right things or having the right words, etc.

And with that, I'm gonna take a nap for a little bit before I make dinner for my dad. I told you I'm tired.

3 years of not so holy matrimony

On March 4, 2006, I walked down the aisle at Grace Fellowship United Methodist Church on my father's arm, my cheeks hurting so bad from my huge grin, ridiculously excited to get to the end and marry the man waiting there for me, with an equally huge grin on his face. We promised to love, honor, and cherish each other for the rest of our lives. It was FANTASTIC.

Fast forward to 3 years later, and well, you know where we stand.

First of all, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you to every single one of you who has uttered a prayer for Denver, me, or our marriage. Its not like he responded to my text today wishing him a happy anniversary, but its not like I expected him to. Things haven't really changed between us, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. What's that old saying, "no news is good news"? I'm not sure if its so much that as that every day that goes by that I don't get served with divorce papers is one more day that God has given me to be Denver's wife. The way I see it, either there's something coming that is HUGE and 100% God-worked or He knows that I'm still not ready to go through it and so He's putting distractions in Denver's life to keep him from filing. Denver's not exactly the most quick-to-act guy out there, so the fact that he's been telling me for a year that he wants a divorce doesn't exactly say much. Wanting a divorce and actually filing for one are not the same thing. However small that chance is, it's still there. And given the fact that I still love my husband and have strong desire to honor my vows to him, that's the chance I'm looking at. That being said, let's talk about some blessings and awesome God activity in my life, shall we?

Have I told you lately that I love you? No? Well, my bad. I have the greatest people in my life. Seriously. God really pulled out all the stops when He gave me friends. Some people have quantity. Other people have quality. A truly blessed few like me have both. Its kind of ridiculous sometimes how amazing y'all are. The way you love me, support me, entertain me, and understand me blows my mind. Thanks for that.

Last night at Alpha, the topic was prayer. I love love love the speaker. Her daughter is one of my Sunday school kiddos, and their family is just precious. She spoke about the basis of prayer being faith. "Without faith, we're just talkin' to ourselves!" Because I have FAITH, I know that my prayers are heard by the Creator of the stinkin' universe. YES. She also spoke about how there's power in persistence and numbers. That's so true. And that is why I thank y'all so so much for all the prayers you've prayed for us. She also spoke about how the answer to a lot of prayers is "Wait." Y'all, that was a HUGE affirmation for me. I mean, she illustrated about how sometimes it takes time to get to where God wants your heart in prayer by talking about Jesus in the garden begging God to change things if there was another way before He finally came to terms with God's will. I've thought many many times that the answer to my prayers about reconciliation and healing was no. But God faithfully nudged me back to "WAIT." Getting that reminder wrapped in a package of "grow your faith and pray without ceasing" was a perfectly timed moment for me. He knows when I need reminders and when I need a little extra fuel for a fight ahead. Today was set to be a battle, and my Lord strengthened me for it. HE IS SO COOL!!

One of the big questions that almost every seeker and/or non-believer ask of Christians is some variation of, "If God loves you, why does He let bad things happen to good people?" Well, the answer is a lot more simple than they think. Its for one or all of the following: to take us away from a bad situation or behavior, to teach us something and help us grow, or to prepare us to help someone else through a similar situation. Scripture tells us that all things work together for the glory of the Lord, so it makes perfect sense. It's become more and more clear to me since I've been down in Katy that God has plans bigger than me for my being here, that there are things He has intended for me through this. Last Spring, I read The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. He discussed this "why do bad things happen" topic at great length. The part about it preparing us to help someone else through a similar situation really spoke to my heart. I never ever in a million years would have guessed that God would have planned for me to use my situation this soon. I'm still going through it! However, His timing and wisdom are perfect. I am getting to know 2 amazing women who are facing similar trials to my own but they do not have the advantage I do of knowing the Lord intimately. I may have mentioned them before, that they are from my Alpha group, and I already know that I love them deeply. They are amazing and special and have beautiful hearts. I'm honored to share my faith and my struggle with them, and I'm blessed beyond belief by my Jesus.

So yea. Today could have so very easily turned into a disgusting pity party. Instead, God gave me some awesome love and blessings and rocked my world.

What defines you?

Tonight at Alpha, the topic was "Why did Jesus Die?" I am not going to blog about that, but if you ask me, I'll tell you what I believe, and there will be mention of goats and lambs.

No, I'm going to blog about something else entirely. Kevin, my group leader (he is HILARIOUS and my role is to help him keep conversation flowing and pray for the group), posed some interesting questions. Living in the world and sinning is a lot like being in water and getting wet. They are unavoidable things because of the location. So do you live your life from a place of sin or forgiveness? And if you had to write 10 words that defined you, would you include "sinner"? How about "forgiven"?

I personally live my life from a place of forgiveness. I am 100% aware that I will never ever ever be good enough to deserve salvation. I can never EARN God's grace, love, and mercy. I am a perpetual sinner. I sin so many times every single day that I couldn't possibly count them all! But instead of viewing myself as the filthy sin-covered person that I probably should, I view myself as forgiven. I am forgiven for them all: the sins I don't realize I committed and thus don't repent for, the ones that I am fully aware of and habitually commit anyway, and the one time mistakes. I am covered in the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and thus I am FORGIVEN. You can't really wrap your head around the hugeness of that. I mean, I'm a pretty forgiving person, and even I can't really grasp the hugeness of that. But I don't have to. Because I live by faith.

As for the words that describe me... No. I would not list sinner. Because in my mind, I feel like its so obvious. I wouldn't list "human", "white", "American", or "female" either, because they're so obvious. They just go without saying to me. As far as forgiven, I think I'd chose a larger word that encompasses it. I am so completely a Christian. I am a believer. I am forgiven. I am in love with my Savior. I am a servant. I am so many things that go into being a follower of Christ. Forgiven is HUGE, but there's just more to it for me.

So what about you? How do you live? Do you live your life oblivious to sin? Do you live it accepting and "oh well!" of your sin? Or do you live knowing that you are loved by the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE just as much every single moment regardless of what you are doing on this earth?