Thoughts.com

God's been doing a wonderful, though very challenging, work in me for some time now.  I am currently in a class called, "Self Confrontation" -if you think the title is intimidating, just take the class!  LOL  ( For information about the class: click here)

But in all seriousness, it has been a tremendous blessing.  I am breaking the blog silence today to share, commemorate and honor a special moment of "tender grace" I just had with God.  I got back my homework assignment last night and read though a list of confessions I had written out under the header "short description of the problem."  (I am working on changing an area of my life that I need to change because it is the biggest hindrance to my walk with God -what causes me to stumble the most as I seek to live a righteous life.) 

At the end of the paragraph I have the following statement:

"I am believing lies that my life will never change and that I am less of a person for it."

 

When I read that just minutes ago I burst into tears.  I could not hold them back.  And as I sat and cried, God revealed to me just how much all that is a horrible, wicked, straight-from-Satan lie.  Then He told me I would start each day in prayer acknowledging that I am nothing apart from Him, that every breath I breathe is because He gave it to me.  It was wonderfully humbling.  He continued to tell me that I was less of a person when I was just a person -but by His grace, His righteousness I am am renewed.  It is all about Him.  And in Him I am able to change -gloriously! and I am great in Him. 

Still crying because of so many things, so many problems, struggles and hurts I could feel my false sense of pride and parts of the old me finally dying!  And because my God is faithful He helped me put off this old and wrong way and put on a new and right way.  (Ephesians 4:22-24)

And God told me, that daily I will come from that truth -firm in that truth.  And from there (and only there) I will be empowered and enabled to change, grow and prosper in righteousness.  God continued and said that from here I would be empowered (He used that word a lot) to face and endure and be victorious over everything He puts before me. 

This truth is not new, this truth I have shared and taught.  But today the loving God of the Universe wrote it on my heart and shut the door to Satan to ever speak against it to me again!  I feel so free right now.  My joy is complete in this! 

My life's circumstances are not improving, I am facing greater challenges, daily!  But my strength in Him is steadily increasing and I am seeing just how blessed I truly am -because of Him. 

Peace & Joy!

-Rhiannon

Some verses that back what God told me today:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:4-10)

 

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds;  and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 2:22-24)

 

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."  (John 15:5)   

I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  (Philippians 3:7-11)

 

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. (Thessalonians 5:23-24)

 

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

 

And I feel, truly, God has given me this message to share with others, Prophetically -so I am sharing this one too:

We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.  Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things.  For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:19-21)

A note on hearing from God: It's hard to describe what it is like when I hear God.  And I wish is was more often I had experiences like this, but I am thankful when I do.  The best way I can describe the "hearing God" I experience is I hear in my head clear -not thought- messages or thoughts.  Like you "hear" your own internal voice reading from a book.  But it is conversational and it pauses and I respond, but it is almost like my heart is responding and I am just listening in.  It is almost  crazy -but fully awesome! 

 

[SPOILER ALERT]

With as many LOST fans as there are I am wondering what everyone else thinks of the ending?

There seems to be two main schools of thought/interpretations.

1.  The Island and everything on the show with the exception of the flash backs was all this nano second of time that happened as they all died crashing on the original flight 815.  -Which I don't accept on hundreds of levels -especially given what Jack's dad, Christian Shepard, said about them all having died at different times (some before and some after Jack). 

and

2. That everything that happened on the Island did really happen, but that the whole sideways life/alternate reality was a form of purgatory or some kind of afterlife that these main characters went through for redemption and such and they needed each other to "move on" to the next life or heaven.  That they all died at some point -because everyone dies eventually- and now they were all connected together as they went on toward the light and Jack was the last to accept and want to deal with his death and real life.

There are variations on both.  Debate among those who believe their versions of the two options above. 

But I am actually ticked off about it!  I am truly mad.  I did not expect -at all- any kind of full explanation of what the Island was, what the Smoke Monster was, why the Island was so important, what was up with all the Egyptian stuff, etc.  But for a show that had an amazing track record of impeccable attention to detail and known for amazing writing I feel like the end was anything but!  By the end I mean the last five minutes or so...

I believe the writers were trying (though in my opinion -VERY POORLY) to tell the story of the second "understanding the ending" theory #2.  If they meant #1 then I have no respect for them as writers, and thankfully I believe that how Jack's dad explains things to Jack it completely disproves the first theory. 

But I am upset with the sideways life.  TOO much detail.  For goodness sakes, Jack and Juliet have a son together!   And many out there are saying that it was a place they lived the life they always wanted -as if the jet never crashed.  But would Sayid have wanted to not be with the love of his life, Nadia, that he tragically lost in his real life after he got off the island? 

And would he have wanted to kill again?  Sure he killed that creep, Keamy, that killed Alex on the Island, but what is HE doing there in their purgatory?  The theory is that people like Michael were stuck on the Island whispering and lost -not able to move on.  What would Keamy be doing there?! 

I found the finale touching, beautiful and very powerful and emotional, but so disappointing to all just end with a quick talk to Jack from his dead dad and then him going off into the light.  REALLY?!  Brill ant writers!!! What a sad way to end it. 

If I wasn't so busy right now and thus having 100 other better to do things I'd be re-writing the ending just to satisfy myself.  LOL   I cried last  night that they actually ended it this way.  And I am still pretty mad.  Especially with the build up in the last two episodes giving so much time and attention to the characters like Jacob and his twin brother "the man in black" and Jack becoming the new Jacob.  Why bother?  Why spend the last two hours before the finale on stuff that would not even be "touched" in the finale?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Some links I found with interesting theories:

I like some people's thoughts on the ending in this one and I particularly like some on this one.


Some interesting links

Dear Banks,
You know you're the brat of the playground, never playing nice and never sharing and never doing what you should.  But when you got your millions to help out the people in need -drowning under huge mortgages for homes worth half what YOU said they were worth- YOU HOARDED IT!!!  You put on a fake smile and softened your bratty tone and said, "Help is on the way."  You shouted out, "Come and together we'll get through this tough time!"  You talked about programs like "HOPE for Homes" and said it would be all okay. 

So we lined up like cattle for the slaughter and drank the poison.  You are foreclosing left and right -like a brat who cannot share a toy given to you TO SHARE you threw the toy on a shelf  too high for us in need to reach and then you bit us and laughed. 

I am glad you are not a person I'd struggle to forgive.  Not more than a sick mess created by too many greedy persons.  Your selfishness, greed, deceit and corruption agaisnt us is not personal to you; although it is deeply personal to us getting left out in the cold, bitten and bleeding, wondering why you threw the only hope there was on a shelf no one could reach. 

And this bitten kid is sitting here wishing you'd just apologize, get a ladder and bring that toy back down before it's too late.  Before you ruin it all for everyone -including yourself...

I wrote this because I know I am not alone in this grief of foreclosure.  Ask anyone who's tragically lost their child and they'll set us straight about tragedy and grief, but this is still a huge wound -one I cannot help but worry will get infected and fester...

It hurts a lot.  More than I think I am even allowing myself to feel yet.  I cannot get over how it all happened...  In short we were told by our mortgage company to STOP paying our mortgage -to fall behind by TWO months so that we could qualify for a program to help us.  (We were making our mortgage payments, but barely and my husband's company shut down the local office and he was out of a job and though our photography business was doing well -it was too tight to make the mortgage and have anything left over for other bills too).  We were told we were pre-qualified and to just FALL BEHIND by TWO PAYMENTS and we'd get the help we needed. 

Month after month we sat in fear  of losing the house only to be assured over and over it would be okay -we were protected from foreclosure because of the program we were on the waiting list for. 

My husband called weekly at times -just to check on the status.  Often they said they were just too inendated and it would be a while to get us back on payments and to see how low they could get our mortgaged down for us.    Other times they would say, "Oh, well, you are missing something from your application paperwork, please fax us ____________ and we'll have you on the program in no time."  ETC. ...

Well in Marck we got a certified letter stating our house was going to be SOLD AT AUCTION!!!  I panicked and ran to my husband in tears.  I couldn't hardly tell him myself.  I handed them to him and for hours went back and forth between tending to the kids and listening in to all the calls he made to lawyers (the ones selling the house for the mortgage company) to the "HOPE" program people, to the mortgage company and everything in between... 

They said we didn't qualify for the program afterall.  Why?  They counted my husband's unemployment twice or something odd like that (but we didn't hear this reason until it was too late -weeks later from the day we got the certified letters).  But we were assured it could be postponned from auction and that there were MANY other programs we could qualify for... 

We called almost daily and we did everything we could.  We applied for new programs and faxed everything all in the same day we got the notice that they were going to sell the house at auction.  We were given a direct line to someone "higher up" who was going to get our house off the auction list and would help us to get into a new program. 

We called this woman ALL the time.  Even begging her to return our calls.  We spoke to others and was assured the request to stop the sell at auction had been made and that it would get stopped...  But we kept calling this woman -we didn't want to take chances!

Starting at 6 AM the morning of the auction she called us several times.  Saying "It's urgent you call me back so I can stop your house from going to auction."  Around 8 am we saw that she'd been calling and leaving messages! 

We never got through to her.  We called every number we had to call.  They said they were calling her CELL for us and emailing her for us (we obviously didn't have her cell number or email address or we'd have been trying that too).  

NOTHING

Then at 9:45 AM she calls.  She says, "I have been trying to stop the foreclosure today, but you didn't pick up and I didn't reach the lawyers in time." 

It went to auction at 10 AM.

We prayed it wouldn't sell...that we'd still have a chance. 

We found out later it did not sell, but it did not matter.  It was just a step the bank took to foreclose us. 

Our house we WANTED to keep was taken from us. 

And what makes it harder to accept is that they put it up for auction and though at HALF of what we owe on it! it didn't sell!!! 

We want it -would GLADLY pay on a mortgage for it based on a price higher than that which they couldn't even get for it! 

But no.  They are kicking us out and will let it sit and sit and sit and sit like so many houses around here.  Some have been sitting for TWO YEARS.  Why won't they just let people out of a terrible loan and re-do it with the same people and get back on track?  THAT'S WHAT THE MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT WAS FOR!!! 

No, they threw it on the shelf -made us jump through hoops and do tricks to only spit in our face and laugh. 

I do not know ONE person who has been approved for and who is SECURELY in a new (remodified) home mortgage through the new government programs...   Yet the banks got millions!!!  I PERSONALLY know 8 families in our shoes or about to be in our shoes because of this MESSED up system! 

I'm done venting now...

Someone on Thoughts.com just asked me why I stopped being an Atheist -and why I came to believe in God and why I was a Christian now. 

Here is what I wrote for him and anyone else who may be curious.  I pray my God-story will help others out there to soon have one of their own!

This will be a LONG post.  I would break it down into several, but I don't want people to read just parts of it -so here it is!  If you plan to read it get some coffee or something cold to drink and make sure it's a comfy seat.    It's a long story -but one I joyfully share with you!

My "testimony" is different than most I have heard. (A "testimony" is what many Christians call their story of how they came to believe in Jesus and accept His gift of salvation and giving their life to Him.)

Short background re-cap/summary:
I was raised to believe in God -the Christian, Biblical version of God and for a while when I was young I did believe -as it is easy to believe in almost anything as a child.

But I had a very difficult and sad childhood. My mother was (and still is) a drug addict and over time it became clear she was also terribly mentally ill.

I was a sweet and very giving -always thinking of others- kind of kid. It was how I made it through the abuse -I had to keep my mom very happy and very happy with me. But with time that was impossible and the abuse and neglect was nearly too much.

Thankfully, my great-grandmother (who was very young for a "great-grandmother") took care of me a lot and the older I got the more she did. When I was 13 my mother kicked me out (because in her illness she imagined awful things about me that were 100% untrue and she told me I was dead to her and didn't want me around her or my sister anymore and called my great-grandmother and made me leave and never come back).  I could probably count the times I've seen her since that awful day!

My great-grandmother was a wonderful, sweet, very kind and very loving woman who raised me (along with my dad who had me every-other-weekend)  as her own child -despite the fact that most women her age were just having fun and enjoying their "retirement." She actually worked and took care of me -even helped me go to college (eventually) and paid for part of my wedding -even though she did not have much money -she truly was fully giving with all she had with me.

She took me to church and raised me to be a good Christian girl. By the time I was a "young adult" I was nothing like the "good Christian girl" I thought I should be and though I still wanted to be I didn't know how and I didn't even know why I should be. My faith in God began to slip away.

Church not only bored me, it angered me. No one had answers to my questions and all I ever was told was to not ask those kinds of questions and to just believe. That only worked for a little while. I am not the type of person (although I am the "sweet, people-pleasing" type) to just agree with things I don't understand and I was "fed-up" with the church and its crap!

By the time I was 23 I was fully convinced that there was no God, but I always longed for there to be one. I didn't really care about Christianity and I hadn't even held a Bible in my hands for years (never really read one when I was younger either...). But I knew people who were Christian and I wanted a life like theirs -just without churchy stuff, churchy people and most of the stuff I remembered about the Bible -like that wives should submit to their husbands and plagues, etc. ;-)

I never told my family too much about my lack of faith because most of them are very quick to get angry and to never let someone explain themselves.

I would just get told mean things like, "Hope you enjoy Hell!" And "Go hang out with your monkey friends and enjoy this life -cos this is all you're going to have." All because I believed in evolution (I took classes in college about evolution and loved all of them except my "Evolution of the Human Brain" one at UCSD-that was just TOO hard of a class to like! LOL).

And to make it worse, most of the Christians in my family were not living a Godly life. I didn't see God's love in them and I certainly didn't get any of it from most of them, except from my great-grandmother -who tried her best to give me a Christian upbringing -in a world very different from the one she grew up in and raised her original two children in.  She didn't know how to answer my ever-growing list of questions about her faith and why it was actually still relevant in this-day-and-age. 

My God-encounter:
On April 4, 2003 my great-grandmother died. I was so extremely brokenhearted that I could hardly breathe at times. I am crying now just thinking of her. Unless you had a childhood like mine and suffered so much you cannot imagine what having a person like her loving you so much really means. But now she was dead.

At her funeral I listened to the pastor talk about Heaven and what it was going to be like and how she would not know pain or suffering there. I wanted to believe him -to believe it was true- but how? How could I?

About a month after her death I had an awful night of missing her so much I don't know if I've ever cried so much in my life. I was married now and with a good job and a nice apartment -a far cry from the rejected and neglected little girl of my past. But I just wanted to die! I wasn't contemplating suicide -it was if I was too broken to even do that!

I had been thinking about God and wanting so much to believe in God and to just have a sense that all this -life- full of love and pain and joy and loss was for a purpose and not just a series of lucky chance: evolution!

My Talk with God:
So I cried out to God that night. Both out-loud with my voice and in my head. I begged Him to be real to me. I clearly remember saying He had to give me a miracle. I kept saying to Him that I know it's called faith for a reason (believing in what you cannot know for sure) but that He was going to have to make an exception for me!

I got angry with Him too. I cried out to Him "You made me this way! You gave me this doubting brain! You gave me a terrible mother who abandoned me and a grandmother who loved me in her place -but now she's gone and here I am dying inside, full of doubt and you won't make yourself real to me! You must not exist and if you don't I don't want to anymore either." Etc.

It went on for a long time. A lot of it I don't remember -but I think I came clean about my fears, inadequacies, my doubts, my sins, my need for Him, etc.

At some point I fell asleep in my bed. I then had a "dream" that was unlike any I had ever had.

This is already a VERY long post so I'll try to make it fast...
Summary of the dream:

My dream was that my great grandmother died just like she had before, but on the day of her funeral she came back to life! The whole world went crazy because a woman who had been clinically dead for DAYS & embalmed was alive again!

I wanted so much to see her beautiful sweet smile again and to just hold her hands. I didn't care about the why and how of her being alive again -I just wanted HER! I tried so hard to get to her -but they kept her in a high-security area of a hospital.

But finally, I got in to see her. Somehow we were alone and I locked the door to just have a few minutes with her. I rushed to her side and I quickly began to talk to her. I had so much I wanted to say and I wanted so much to just hear her voice again.

But when I got to her and began to speak she just went on and on saying, "Blue eyes." My heart sank as I thought she was just like she was before she died slipping in and out of consciousness and really just not making any sense.

With great pain I said, "Yeah, Grandma." She was my great grandmother, but I just called her Grandma. I continued, "I know I have blue eyes, just like you." I was CRUSHED and just about as angry as I sat there tortured to have her back but to only have her back broken and brain damaged.

She kept saying it, "Blue eyes..." Over and over, saying it longingly... I said, "I know, Grandma. I know; I have blue eyes..." Then she grabbed my face and with a very unexpected strength she said, "You have the most beautiful blue eyes -just like Jesus."

I flinched and began to pull away from her. I was both shocked by the fact that she was now speaking coherently and by what she said. But she would not let me pull away from her -she had more strength than I had. With her hands still firmly on my face she said, "He sent me back here to tell you that He loves you and wants you to know you are a good girl."

I began to cry so hard. I was so overwhelmed by it all. She was back from the dead and Jesus sent her back with a message for me. I was just knocked over by it all.

She began to cry in a very conflicted way. I looked deep into her eyes and I said, "You miss Him, don't you?" She said with a mournful cry, "I miss Him so much." I said, "I know." And we held each other one last time and then she died again in my arms.

I cannot tell you how emotional just retelling this dream is for me. I can hardly see through these tears to write this out for you.

Most Important Part:
After she died I woke up. My husband had come to bed after I feel asleep and I had been crying very hard in my sleep and he tried to wake me from my bad dream, but could not.

When I did wake I told him all about it and I was FULLY convinced it was REAL and NOT A DREAM. Like I had been transported into another reality -that was as real as this one. (Very hard to explain -very science fiction like.)

My pillow was WET with all my tears and I was still so shaken by the whole event.

He believed me. He didn't know how it was possible -but he believed it.

From that MOMENT ON I BELIEVED!!! There was a GOD and JESUS was part of it. And God used my great grandmother to bring His message of love for me to me. The creator of the universe told me He loved me.

I remember taking a shower afterward and asking God to baptize me Himself and I prayed HARD that He would come into my heart and that I would never go back to where I had been before I had believed.

I began that morning to read all about God, Jesus and the Bible on the Internet (I didn't have a Bible).

I fell in love with God! I called family and friends who would celebrate it with me. I was like a new creation. I remember thinking - "I feel BRAND NEW!" Later I would read in the Bible that I was in fact made a new creation in Christ when I gave my life to Him.

I went to the Catholic Church and a few others, looked into all churches that believed in Jesus. I didn't know if I believed in the Bible, if any of it was really true, but I did believe there was a God and that Jesus died for me and loved me.

I prayed a lot and sought Him in everything. I had such tremendous purpose and joy. I wanted everyone to know about it too -and for them to experience my joy!

An Interesting Side Note:
The morning after this dream happened -when I was sitting at my computer trying to find out everything I could about God it hit me like a truck going 100 Miles an Hour: It was only a dream! I just wanted to believe in God so much I dreamed it. My desire to not hurt anymore was so strong it took over my subconscious and made me dream that so I would have some kind of hope to keep me from hurting so much, etc. I cried.

But THEN! I felt a breaking feeling -like something on me broke off. And I stopped crying and I thought, "Why would I have dreamed about Jesus having BLUE EYES?!" I always used to get so made when I saw pictures of Jesus with blue eyes and white actors playing Jesus in movies -Jesus was not likely born with blue eyes if He was born of Mary a Jewish woman who lived in the modern day Middle-East.

Then I began to LAUGH! I GOT IT!!! God knew me so well! He knew if He didn't put something into the dream that was so foreign from me -so "NOT RHIANNON" I (or Satan messing with me) would later convince myself that I just made it all up in my brain. But the part about "blue eyes" was not me! Not from me! But from God!!!

This would become the foundation of my now GREAT faith!

Over the years so many things have come to challenge it -shake it to the core- but always God has been so faithful to see me through and to help build with me even more and great things on that first layer of foundation in Him.  Each time I come out even more transformed and less and less like the lost and insecure, brokenhearted and hopeless mess I was that night I cried out to Him to be real to me!

I went from that day knowing there was a God -a God who LOVED me- to knowing Him, loving Him and actually growing in such an awesome friendship that I can with full confidence say that He is my best friend and that we have an awesome relationship and the best is yet to come for our relationship! 

 

Baptist preacher in the UK arrested for saying homosexuality is a sin!  WHAT?! 

I just saw someone on Thoughts.com who posted about this incident and had this link to the story.  I honestly just cannot believe it!!!  Though I don't often like what people say and put on signs and yell with anger at groups -I am glad they can here in the US!  I do not support hate crimes -of any type!  but telling someone what it says in an ancient text and saying you believe it to be true is NOT a hate crime -even if some find it offensive!!! 

Is a Jew committing a hate crime to say Hitler is responsible for millions of deaths and that they see him as an awful  man of unthinkable evil? 

What do you think about this?!