Month: September 2020

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I’m Not a Real Christian

I’m not a real Christian according to some.

Some people tell me because I believe in Science along with God, I’m not a real Christian. I believe in the Science that masks, washing hands, washing surfaces, and limiting close contact with people will keep us healthy. I believe that even a 2% death rate is too much. I believe the world can reopen if everyone would follow that plan but since so many people are too selfish to follow the rules, we have no choice but to be closed. I believe if masks were not healthy, surgeons, fencers, and dentists would have been dying in droves long before this started. 

I believe the people in our world are too selfish to look beyond themselves to do anything slightly inconvenient. That’s the real plague hitting our world. I also believe until people start doing things to help people, this will be here until we start coming back loving each other how God wanted in the same way the Plagues in Exodus just kept coming until the Pharaoh finally did the right thing.

Some say I’m not a real Christian because I am pro-choice. Even though John 6-8 from The Message reminds us: “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone”. For my body, I am pro-life. I wish everyone would be pro-life, but I also understand some people are in terrible situations where that just may not be possible. For those people, I love them and support them making the most difficult choice ever.

I am not without sin, I will not judge them for theirs. Instead, I will love them and fight to protect them from the unfair stones coming their way. I also do not understand how the people from the previous paragraph can be ok with 2% of sick people of dying but still yell all lives matter and pro-life is in the only way. Sounds more “Pro-birth” than Pro-life to me. Especially when we treat the poor, oppressed, foreign-born people so horribly.

Some say I am wrong for believing immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers deserve to be welcomed. With a hot meal, a warm bed, and a chance to live a life away from the dangerous parts they came from just as the book of Matthew instructs. These are families who have taken their babies through war zones to protect them and give them a good life. They are not a threat to our lives. They are brothers and sisters seeking a better life. 

Many of them are the same people so many vacation mission trips swear they love and want to help so badly. If you can love them when you get to work in the Dominican, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Mexico when you get to visit and work in paradise – why can’t you love them the same when they come here? Is it really about the mission then? Or boosting your ego on social media while getting a tan and visiting paradise? I believe we should love people and help them everywhere. Especially when they are on our own doorsteps. It’s literally what Revelation 3:14-20 was written for.

Some say I’m not a real Christian believe I believe love is love. Love is for everyone. Honestly, I think we got Leviticus 18:22 all wrong. The flawed human who interpreted those words then wrote it down clearly misunderstood something. I do not believe our God, so full of love, would ever say true love is wrong. He would not promote hate. He would certainly not teach us to judge, shun, and treat people unjustly over their love. I believe God Himself felt so seriously about it, He sent his son down to clear it all up for us with actual words from His own mouth in John 13:34-35: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This isn’t rocket science. Its a new commandment, one that covers the whole Bible and the whole world forever. Love everyone as Jesus loves you. 

You sin, I sin, we all sin yet God and Jesus love us. That’s how He tells us to conduct ourselves and the only way people will know we are His disciples. By loving people how we are loved. Full of grace and forgiveness. During hard times, happy times, scary times, sad times – all of the times! I searched those verses in multiple Bibles looking for the * pointing out it applied to everyone except gay people, and guess what? It wasn’t there. Not in NIV, KJV, The Message, NLT, ESV, NKJV, or anywhere. They all say it clear as day. 

Love everyone as Jesus loves you. THAT is how the world knows you’re a Chrisitian. That is what I’m trying to do. 

I don’t worry about anyone who thinks giving love and demanding justice for all the people of the world makes me less of a Christian. Their judgement doesn’t matter to me nor should it matter to you. It’s hard some days when you feel like you’re in the minority and surrounded by hate, but you’re doing exactly what we were all asked to before Jesus left. 

Jesus says that makes us all real Christians. Some people may say I’m not a real Christian but I’m not living my life to appeal to their judgemental hearts. I am living my life to love and help those around me. Just like my Bible tells me to.

And that’s all that matters.

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What I did Over Summer Vacation

I don’t think I ever got to write a “What I Did Over Summer Vacation” essay for school. That’s the beauty of owning your own blog: you can give yourself assignments. So here I go. 

Over summer vacation, I sat around feeling really low and numb quite a bit. The television hurts me to watch. Social media can hurt with the pain too. Seeing the emotions, struggles, fighting, injustice, and lack of basic love for other people nearly kills me. So many people are so worried about their own selfish needs they do not seem to be bothered watching their neighbors die or be treated terribly by the world. It was really hard to just keep going some days so I knew it was time to pull back a bit. 

Sometimes, pulling back can be dark and scary. That’s the really hard part of depression. Instead of looking for something bright and working toward it, you curl up in a ball without any real idea how to get out of it. I have been there many times before, but this time I managed to keep myself looking for the bright spot. 

I found it. I signed a book deal. 

I would like to ask everyone right now to read that sentence 100 times and smile big while doing it. I thought about typing it 100 times but I think that may be overkill for you as readers (I might do it later just for fun for me though). I have wanted to do this for years, I have been told by others to do it for years, and I have been feeling the pull deep in my heart to do it yet I always found a reason to talk myself out of it. Until this summer when the world was falling apart and I couldn’t find happiness anywhere so I decided to force some into my world by doing something terrifying. Also exciting. And all of the feelings in between depending on the day. 

I didn’t blog and I’m sorry for that. 

I don’t want to be a person who just talks because she thinks she should. I don’t want for force words or thoughts. I think a lot of people force things from time to time and it just takes all sincerity out of the world. It diminishes the stories and all my hopes for you (and me). I’m still sorry the blog was dead. I always keep the Facebook and Instagram going! Follow me there for just little snippets on the fly during “dry spells” here.

I went to Disney World. Masked up, socially distanced, and totally different than ever before but had the best time of my life there. I needed to go to my happy place. 

I learned to play golf. I am bad. I have fun. It’s awesome. 

I reconnected with an old friend. Who is really going through what I am. I both love and hate that fact. Mostly, I just love her and its so stupid we got too lazy to connect sooner. I learned to never let that happen again. I need my people and they need me. We’re all very important to someone, even if we don’t fully see it. 

I went camping. I went on bike rides. I read so many books. I made amazing connections to help reach so many women! I made amazing connections to help me be reached and empowered! I forgave people I never thought I could. That alone is worth all the silence in the world. I gained a lot of peace from one act. It was not simple. 

I learned how to be ok with people not liking me. I generally am ok with people not liking me over small things, but big things I feel and believe deep in my heart came under attack. In the past, I would have lost sleep, worried endlessly, argued vehemently, and carried on as the worst possible version of me. I battled those demons fiercely for weeks and while it was not easy, I can say the growth was worth it. I’m getting more comfortable in my skin. 

I’m also a level 26 Pokemon Go trainer. Kind of big deal (also, I need more friends for a research gig from the professor so contact me with your code if you play!).

I laughed, loved, learned, and got sunburned once. I lived fully and with only a few tiny regrets (I’m too old to do back to back roller coasters anymore).

Now I’m ready for fall and being back in the swing of things. I want to hear about your Summer Vacation in the comments!