A dear friend of mine is wrestling with the different accounts of religion and of what/who God is. After a fabulous visit, I thought about what she said and wrote the following letter to her.
I would appreciate any comments and thoughts.
Dearest Friend,
I've been thinking a lot about what you said: God is Love.
yes, that is ABSOLUTELY true, but, my love, it is only a part of the story. Mind you, it is the BEST part, but it is the best part because of what comes before it:
So, I share what the "gospel" really is with my most precious friend.
Going to the personality of God, we must first remember that He is God, and we are not, so we can only understand God through ourselves, which is ultimately inadequate. This is why we have scripture (and sometimes disagreement :-) ).
the four atributes of God:
1)God is perfectly Holy/Pure: He cannot be around that which is not perfectly pure. He cannot sin. He cannot violate his own law, nor simply "look over" when it is violated. Whether one believes we violated His law and commandments (they are pretty good - that top ten has yet to be beat!) through birth, or after, the fact is that we all have done so. We are, therefore, not pure or holy.
2) God is perfectly Just. When we have violated our relationship with him through sin, there must be penance. "The wages of sin is death." Pretty drastic, I know, but not when you even try to consider how perfect He is in His being and doing.
3) God is perfectly Merciful: God does not want us to die. He does not want us to be out of fellowship with Him. He wants to be with us, His creation for EVER. He wants to Love us...so..
4)God is perfectly Loving. This is where Jesus comes in. In the Old Testament, God required a sacrifice of a perfect Lamb from the Hebrews each year. This lamb died for the sins of the Hebrew people. However, even the Garden of Eden, God promised a savior one day. That savior is His son, Jesus Christ. "He that knew no sin, became sin for us that we might be Holy in Him."
Jesus died to pay the price for our sins because we could not pay for them ourselves. God made a way for us to be with Him forever! We must be pure to be with God, and the only way to be pure is cast our sin/transgression/disobedience on Christ. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one may come to the Father, but by me."
Many people simply call Jesus a great teacher, but no other teacher has said what he just said, and no other teacher in the world has ever done what he has done - conquered DEATH!
Jesus has given us a legacy of peace (not perfect easiness, but peace) if we will believe and follow Him. I hope you will be blessed by experiencing and living in His perfect Love forever through Jesus-the only way.
All MY LOVE, FOREVER,
Charly
I visited here today and thought that you would enjoy it too! - check this out at: http://wandascountryhome.com/trilogy/
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Season of Suffering- part 1-the chronology
In the last two years, I went through a terrible issue of Depression and Anxiety. I didn’t know that was what it was until I was starting to come out of it. I’d like to describe a little bit of my descent, how I survived, and the recovery.
The pre-beginning was the announcement of our move to San Angelo, TX. I had become quite enamored with a more agrarian style of living…or the idea of it anyway. As a homeschooler, there is a wonderful movement toward a more simple and quite historic way of living. These ideas are ideas of order in the home (who wouldn’t love that?) a healthy relation between Father, Mother, and various aged children. It reflects on a time when families truly had solidarity. There were great benefits to families working as teams for the benefit of each other and those in need in the community. As a latch-key kid, child of divorce with the TV often as a babysitter, one can see how these ideas would be very attractive.
So, along with some other ideas in theology (which we still hold) we began attending a family-integrated church. Parts of it were awesome! The families were wonderful and genuine people. The worship was very fulfilling (not that fulfilling is the idea, but it was nice). Our daughter was nine and our son was close to two. This is when we began to notice problems. Our son just couldn’t “get with the program” and play along with the idea in my head of this wonderful family order. Please, dear reader, do not misunderstand: I expected him to be a two year old boy. I expected him to talk, ask questions, need distractions, etc.. However, the constant tantrums, the inability for any parenting “method” to speak to him and teach/train him as to what was expected was more than frustrating! He was difficult even for a two year old.
So, our announcement of the move came and with it another announcement: I was expecting our third child. How marvelous! An exciting adventure in a new place, a new baby, more homeschooling-which I love. Woo-Hoo! We moved when I was three months pregnant. We found a house to rent in a great neighborhood. My husband began his new assignment. I found a great midwife whom I trusted completely… the tantrums continued.
In November our third son was born. He was beautiful! The birth was amazing! Right after that, we began trying the Feingold diet for our other son. (It avoids food dyes, salicylates, and certain preservatives.) We saw a bit of an improvement. We were encouraged. However, when, by April-his fourth birthday- he was still having the awful tantrums, we knew it was time to start asking questions.
In short, through the next two years, we learned that our son was on the autism spectrum, has a mal-growth of his brain, needed a very strict diet: gfcf and did not ever get any real sleep, even when he did sleep. No wonder his usual answer to stress was to scream and throw whatever was in his hand. He would have “laughing seizures” and my daughter would have to take the baby so I could hold my son until he was done with his “fit”.
I developed a terrible depression. All my hopes, dreams, ideals, everything just crashed and burned. I cried for weeks. I slept. I cooked, but didn’t like to do so. Recognizing that I was NOT myself, I tried to reach out a bit. I joined some online communities regarding autism, gluten-free and more. But still I suffered. I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I just wished I could lay down and die. I went to mydoctor again and again. On a six week rotation, I would go into his office and say, “I’m tired and my hair is falling out. I’m stressed.” Then, I would start crying. My doctor sent me to a dermatologist for the hair, ran thyroid panels and told me to get a counselor.
My dermatologist told me to take Biotin, the thyroid panels were perfect, and no counselors were available. Finally, my dear husband had a dear, dear friend call me and all she said was, “How are you” and I started crying uncontrollably. Fortunately for me, my dear friend was the wife of the Senior Protestant Chaplain on base. The two of them came over. He gave me counseling sessions, contacted my doctor, and got me the help I really needed; compassion and even some medication.
After years of being on the “alert” for my son’s tantrums to help him not hurt others… My stress level was sky high! There was never a break because I couldn’t trust anyone else to watch him. San Angelo is not a large town and with his bizarre behavior, I found it difficult to be connected. My two saving graces were my neighbors and my MOPS group. (Mothers of Preschoolers).
We finally moved back to San Antonio thanks to the Air Force and by this time, both my son and I were on special diets and medication to assist us. I am happy to say that now, months later, my medication is down to almost nothing. My son is much better, but the real story here is what I learned from this which will be in the next post….. To be continued….
The pre-beginning was the announcement of our move to San Angelo, TX. I had become quite enamored with a more agrarian style of living…or the idea of it anyway. As a homeschooler, there is a wonderful movement toward a more simple and quite historic way of living. These ideas are ideas of order in the home (who wouldn’t love that?) a healthy relation between Father, Mother, and various aged children. It reflects on a time when families truly had solidarity. There were great benefits to families working as teams for the benefit of each other and those in need in the community. As a latch-key kid, child of divorce with the TV often as a babysitter, one can see how these ideas would be very attractive.
So, along with some other ideas in theology (which we still hold) we began attending a family-integrated church. Parts of it were awesome! The families were wonderful and genuine people. The worship was very fulfilling (not that fulfilling is the idea, but it was nice). Our daughter was nine and our son was close to two. This is when we began to notice problems. Our son just couldn’t “get with the program” and play along with the idea in my head of this wonderful family order. Please, dear reader, do not misunderstand: I expected him to be a two year old boy. I expected him to talk, ask questions, need distractions, etc.. However, the constant tantrums, the inability for any parenting “method” to speak to him and teach/train him as to what was expected was more than frustrating! He was difficult even for a two year old.
So, our announcement of the move came and with it another announcement: I was expecting our third child. How marvelous! An exciting adventure in a new place, a new baby, more homeschooling-which I love. Woo-Hoo! We moved when I was three months pregnant. We found a house to rent in a great neighborhood. My husband began his new assignment. I found a great midwife whom I trusted completely… the tantrums continued.
In November our third son was born. He was beautiful! The birth was amazing! Right after that, we began trying the Feingold diet for our other son. (It avoids food dyes, salicylates, and certain preservatives.) We saw a bit of an improvement. We were encouraged. However, when, by April-his fourth birthday- he was still having the awful tantrums, we knew it was time to start asking questions.
In short, through the next two years, we learned that our son was on the autism spectrum, has a mal-growth of his brain, needed a very strict diet: gfcf and did not ever get any real sleep, even when he did sleep. No wonder his usual answer to stress was to scream and throw whatever was in his hand. He would have “laughing seizures” and my daughter would have to take the baby so I could hold my son until he was done with his “fit”.
I developed a terrible depression. All my hopes, dreams, ideals, everything just crashed and burned. I cried for weeks. I slept. I cooked, but didn’t like to do so. Recognizing that I was NOT myself, I tried to reach out a bit. I joined some online communities regarding autism, gluten-free and more. But still I suffered. I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I just wished I could lay down and die. I went to mydoctor again and again. On a six week rotation, I would go into his office and say, “I’m tired and my hair is falling out. I’m stressed.” Then, I would start crying. My doctor sent me to a dermatologist for the hair, ran thyroid panels and told me to get a counselor.
My dermatologist told me to take Biotin, the thyroid panels were perfect, and no counselors were available. Finally, my dear husband had a dear, dear friend call me and all she said was, “How are you” and I started crying uncontrollably. Fortunately for me, my dear friend was the wife of the Senior Protestant Chaplain on base. The two of them came over. He gave me counseling sessions, contacted my doctor, and got me the help I really needed; compassion and even some medication.
After years of being on the “alert” for my son’s tantrums to help him not hurt others… My stress level was sky high! There was never a break because I couldn’t trust anyone else to watch him. San Angelo is not a large town and with his bizarre behavior, I found it difficult to be connected. My two saving graces were my neighbors and my MOPS group. (Mothers of Preschoolers).
We finally moved back to San Antonio thanks to the Air Force and by this time, both my son and I were on special diets and medication to assist us. I am happy to say that now, months later, my medication is down to almost nothing. My son is much better, but the real story here is what I learned from this which will be in the next post….. To be continued….
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