River of the Living God

this is an e - mail I sent to massive amounts of people

Hi everyone! I wanted to share an experience I had just now with you all and I would like to know what you think if you want to write back. I just got back from a Stress Management program presented by the UCC where we went over some relaxation stuff and re - thinking bad thoughts stuff.

What's interesting is that at the end, the person that was leading the program led us in a visualization excercise where we visualized ourselves by a river that had leaves falling into it. The person said, "Let these leaves become those thoughts of worry and let them fall in to the river and let them just float away." Suddenly it hit me: The City where the River of Life flowed from the Throne of God... The River whoose source was Jesus and which is accessed through the acceptance of His blood. I closed my eyes and bowed my head and have those thoughts I'd been having to the River. The Point of Grace rendition of 'Shall we gather at the river' came into my head.

When the visualization excercise was completed, the UCC person asked us what we experienced. I shared that the river became the River that flowed from God and that I could give all my thoughts to God. The UCC person said, "Well, that might not work for everyone seeing as not everyone believes in God or thinks of Him in that personal way, but for you it worked." I knew it worked, but I was sad that she said it couldn't work for everyone, because if one seeks, one shall find - it's promised in the Bible. And I know people that have sought out God or asked for His presence and He was faithful. It worked for me because the visualization took me out of my mind and into the presence of my Ceator, Savior, and God.

Happy Post-Thanksgiving!

Borrowed that from Edwin -The Ghost Blogger. Anyway, yeah, Thanksgiving was cool. I typed up a 100 things that I'm thankful for - something that Abra did last year :) and realized that a little over one third of it is purely praises to God and I know that all the other things are His blessings. Mom looked at the list and was like, "I'm number FIVE???" I think she was kinda dissapointed :( but, I told her that the first four were just about one Person, and she was like, "Oh." I don't know if she'll read it. She asked me what I was writing and I told her and she wanted to see it. At first I was like, "Whoa. She's going to be like 'what?!' when she sees how much I talk about God." Then I realized that I have to have that courage to just 'live out loud' like the Stephen Curtis Chapman song. So, I gave her the list and I think she kinda looked at it. It's so weird how I can live out my faith just fine around my fellow Believers, but it takes a bit more courage among non - believers because I know I might get shamed or something around them. But I do it because God wants me to and He will get glory and it's His way of showing that He is real.

God has been faithful with Biochemistry

So there was this one post called "Thank God I'm taking Biochemistry." that I wrote in July. The class is almost over, but here are some cool things that came out of it:

1. I'm in it with 2 awesome girls: Suda who I met in Lory Apartments and Audrey who was in PH121 and 122 with me; I pray I get to share with them sometime this year

2. I got to discuss, at least a little bit, intellegent design and the metabolic cycle with my professor. We're studying lipids, so that conversation can possibly continue.

3. I saw God was sovereign in the most intricate details of things which was most supercool!

4. That reassurance helped me through my friend getting briefly really sick as well as continued to help me with my 'chronic faith struggles' about other things.

5. It's just cool. Even though it can be hard. It's still cool.

6. Arrow - pushing is kept to a bare minimum. (Hooray!)

7. Another D - Team member is taking Biochemistry and has helped me with it - if you are that person, THANKS! :)

8. And it really has helped me partially review for the MCAT!

Practice, He perfects

Right. I'm trying to put my faith into practice, mainly my faith about how God's has Awesome Creation Skills.... ok ok... you can stop laughing... stop... laughing... ok, laugh whenever you feel like...GOSH! Anyway, I'm talking to 2 people about this issue that don't believe in God as Creator. It's interesting because I can be so fluent and go on and on without hinderance when I'm around my Creationist nerdy pre - med friends, but around these guys, I have to be careful about what I say and / or I worry whether I say the right thing. But I think God's just glad that I'm talking to people about this outside my Creationist circle because it glorifies Him and I see that. As I start to talk to non - Christians about this, my faith in God the Creator is stregnthening, and my faith in a God who speaks through me is also stregnthening. :)

The God Model

So HDFS majors are crazy about models. There's a developmental model (yay Piaget!) and a model analyzing grief and a model for analyzing unequitable marriages and a model for analyzing... ok, hopefully you get the idea even if you are not an HDFS major.

For the past four years, I have analyzed my childhood and family structure through various different models and theories. I know no one can fit or come up to scratch with one model perfectly. No matter what model I analyze through, I see deficits and I see those deficits having ramifications later on. But then one of my professors said that even with some deficits I described, I had recieved that need or fulfilled that task in some way.

I then realized that there was one overarching model. The God model. I was always struck by the part of the song in Father Let Me Dedicate that said, "Can a child presume to choose / where or how to live//Can a Father's love refuse / all the best to give/" because I know that not all children including myself lived in a completely healthy family, and some children lived in really terrible conditions. So, of course, it goes back to the "How can a loving God allow..." type questions.

Today I saw the answer: When a child comes out of a family - healthy or otherwise - and enters into God's family, he or she starts to see things from and analyze his or her life using the God model where their weaknesses were overcome by God's stregnth, and they see that God was there giving them blessings and holding them through their pain. God was also the one to give them new life or keep their hearts softened through it all so that His spirit would minimize any negative effects of unhealthy patterns of development and parenting. God and the members of His body take in that person and renew the person through His spirit and by fellowship.

One can only analyze things through the God model because God opens people's eyes. One can only be freed through the God model because only God can give them that new life.

Can a child presume to choose
Where or how to live?
Can a Father's love refuse
all the best to give

let my glad heart while it sings
Thee in all proclaim

This alone shall be my prayer
Glorify Thy name

Be glorifed in me
Be glorified
Be glorified in me
Be glorified