Before I ask this weeks BLT, Nerdiah asked about my testimony so I'll give a little summation of how I came to know the Lord. I grew up "religious", Methodist actually, and was faithful to go to church every Sunday. I sat through the flannel board lessons and tried to"be good" and said empty prayers to a God that I felt was so far away, I just didn't get it. There were some abuses toward me while I was growing up, and my ways of thinking were not the most productive for a teenage girl. When I turned 18, I got my CMA license and worked as a Geriatric Medical Assistant. My charge nurse was a strong Christian woman and for the next 9 months or so gently witnessed Christ to me without hardly saying a word. She new I was hurting, and I was seeking. Right before my 19th birthday, I asked her how I could know her God, she seemed so dang happy all the time, nothing got to her. We sat on the side of the bed of one of my favorite Christians, Lois Pittman, and she prayed and cried with me that night. My life was not instantly changed by any means, but I felt Him, and His peace and found a non-denominational church and started to dig into His word. The more I sought Him out, the more He showed me, but I still resisted letting everything go to Him, in fact that didn't happen until I was 26. Which leads me to this weeks BLT. While some people when they give their lives to the Lord, are able to surrender it all at once, I do believe, mainly because I am one of them, that sometimes it takes awhile. How was it for you? Have you completely surrendered everything to Him yet, or do you still struggle with holding on to something that "you can handle"? What's He asking you to give to Him today? Blessings on your Spirit filled day!!!!Friday, September 14, 2007
BLT DAY!!!!
Before I ask this weeks BLT, Nerdiah asked about my testimony so I'll give a little summation of how I came to know the Lord. I grew up "religious", Methodist actually, and was faithful to go to church every Sunday. I sat through the flannel board lessons and tried to"be good" and said empty prayers to a God that I felt was so far away, I just didn't get it. There were some abuses toward me while I was growing up, and my ways of thinking were not the most productive for a teenage girl. When I turned 18, I got my CMA license and worked as a Geriatric Medical Assistant. My charge nurse was a strong Christian woman and for the next 9 months or so gently witnessed Christ to me without hardly saying a word. She new I was hurting, and I was seeking. Right before my 19th birthday, I asked her how I could know her God, she seemed so dang happy all the time, nothing got to her. We sat on the side of the bed of one of my favorite Christians, Lois Pittman, and she prayed and cried with me that night. My life was not instantly changed by any means, but I felt Him, and His peace and found a non-denominational church and started to dig into His word. The more I sought Him out, the more He showed me, but I still resisted letting everything go to Him, in fact that didn't happen until I was 26. Which leads me to this weeks BLT. While some people when they give their lives to the Lord, are able to surrender it all at once, I do believe, mainly because I am one of them, that sometimes it takes awhile. How was it for you? Have you completely surrendered everything to Him yet, or do you still struggle with holding on to something that "you can handle"? What's He asking you to give to Him today? Blessings on your Spirit filled day!!!!
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Surrender? Everything? Is THAT the deal? Geez!!! Ya know, daily, I wake up and have to choose not to let my flesh step in the way. What I mean is, I often think waayyy too highly of myself! I am not trying to be self deprecating (as a friend just told me recently) like I am worthless. But I will admit that I am not all knowing. Only He is! I have a disease that I daily live with that requires me to exercise my faith in God in a way I never have before. It is difficult. It is hard to surrender my thoughts and motives to Him. But if I'm being honest - often times my thoughts and motives are very ungodly - and I must lay them all down, surrender. I put many things before Him - even though there should be no other gods but Him. So...are there still things I need to surrender? Yup? Daily! Some are things I've white knuckled for years - and some are new - but daily it is a process to trust God with ALL my life in surrender....
YAY!!!I got my BLT! I will be back later tonight to with my answer...love ya!!!!!!
Thanks for sharing your testimony. I was wonder, you say that when you were younger, you "said empty prayers to a God that I felt was so far away", which implies that you already believed God existed, you just didn't feel very close to Him. Is that right?
Hi Nerdiah, no what I meant was, my parents believed and I was along for the ride. I just bowed my head and said what I had been taught, but it was empty and I really didn't believe or know who or what I was talking about. So, I went to everything from budda, etc., many different religions, before got ahold of me. Hope that helps!!!!! Take care, Deb
Surrender...mmmmmm that is another novel in itself.
I surrendered my life to HIM years ago, but surrender is a daily thing for me. When I wake up I make the choice to surrender my will to HIS, and although some days are good, others are more difficult to surrender. When my daughter was diagnosed with cervical cancer at 19, it was an hour to hour surrender to HIM, and sometimes just crying to save her, pleading is not even the word. Did I believe that HE would heal her..yes, but every other thought was what if HE chooses to not heal her. Her condition was healed but not til I surrendered to HIM that if HE was going to take her, what was there I could do about that, and I just constantly reminded my self that no matter what I choose to believe that HE is good. Surrender is a choice, but now that I have done so much of it over the years, and still struggle at times with it, I know it is still the best thing for me to do. Place everything in HIS hand, and believe that He is good, lay my Isaac down, and know that HE will do what is best for the situation even if I won't see it or understand it here.
Did I answer the question? What a rambler I have become! Love ya
I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what convinced you that there is a God (not even necessarily the Christian God) to begin with?
Uh, I guess in asking that I'm assuming that the default position is the "null hypothesis" of the atheist, i.e. no belief in God (as opposed to belief in no God, as it's commonly mistakenly assumed). However, I've met many people (most people, it seems) whose default seems to be "a belief in something", often vague, which they kind of equate with God or spirit or something of that nature.
"Have you completely surrendered everything to Him yet, or do you still struggle with holding on to something that "you can handle"? "
Surrendering myself completely to the will of someone else is perhaps the hardest thing I can think of doing. It just isn't in my nature.
I have the character flaw of being stubborn, very stubborn.
It takes a lot for me to ask for help. I have no doubt there were times when I made things much harder on myself by not asking for help.
I also have too much pride. This has I am sure prevented me from asking for help when I probably needed it.
In my case my mother was sick and in the hospital much of the time. My father worked 7 days a week to pay the bills. I pretty much raised myself.
I can't judge whether I have too much confidence. I can say being confident has help me pass each test life has given me, at least so far. How well I passed is of course debatable.
It is by being tested that we come know the meaning of faith. Faith means different things to different people.
How you come to have faith is probably not important. That you have it is.
If surrendering your self to the will of God has help you in your life than it is good that you found God.
It never helped me.
We are both lucky to have found what we need.
Nerdiah: I try to take weekends off, but I want to answer you LOL
I had the "belief in something" when I cried out...I had no idea who or what I was asking for....just when my charge nurse began to talk to me there was a stirring to want to know more....so, I prayed, not knowing who I was praying to, but my heart was sincere....that's all He needs and He responded to me in a big way....thanks for being on my blog..I really enjoy your posts!
Ed: WOW, you are an amazing man Ed, thank you so much for your writings on Tam's page. My allergies were kickin' in.. :)
If I can be honest with ya for a minute.....we are all human...believer or not, we all struggle with pride, stubborness, arrogance all of the things we all have. The great thing is, God accepts us where we are. People, like you, tend to look at their flaws, but when I read your writings, I see a man, who has compassion on humanitiy, and something worth saying. I can so relate to not asking for help...I am extremely independant, and will give anything to anyone, recieving is a different story. I can handle it and do it on my own, thank you, but then the Lord puts me in a place where I can't. Once I let go of that to Him, life got much easier LOL. It sounds like you didn't have much of an example of a "Father" so it may be a foreign concept to you to understand the love of your Heavenly father. My prayer for you, is that you would get into His word and get to know Him. I wish my husband and I could meet you, you are someone with your life experience, compassion and thoughts, that I would really love to have in our life. I'm glad I do on the blogging world, and hope you will continue to contribute. I for one and glad you are who you are!
I just got back from the beach. As often as I can I go there to watch the sun rise over the water.
It brings me joy. I feel more alive. As I think about it now I am surrendering my self to the feeling. I suspending my thinking and just feel.
It isn't exactly the same type of surrender you are talking about but we are both feeling joy when we do it.
In reading the Christian blogs one thing that clearly comes through is the joy you feel. Joy is the most wonderful of emotion. I can feel the joy you express. It makes me feel happy. It motivates me to keep reading.
Joy is all about surrender. I feel joy in listening to music. Sometimes I do think about the music or the quality of the voice of the singer. Sometimes I just surrender my self to the sounds and I am filled with joy.
Some of the paintings of Monet are like that. The beauty of the colors is overwhelming. I don't analysis his technique. I just surrender my senses to the images. I feel joyful.
So I do surrender my self to those things that bring me joy. Not in the same way as you perhaps.
What is important is that we both have found ways to feel joy.
Thank for your kind words about what I wrote in Tam's blog. Trying to help people is another thing that brings us joy.
Ed, I understand about the beach, it is my favorite place to be. I feel all of the things you do when I am there, I feel peace awe, love making sand castles ;) But, the only difference is I give credit to the one that made it. I think you do feel Him, and just aren't realizing it. It's not just by chance that you are here on our blogs, with a bunch of nutty believers, and I'm not trying to sell you a used car. But the peace, and joy that you experience, come from Him, He is trying to speak to you now. I think you'll hear Him, it's like if you bought one of your neices something they had been wanting for a really long time, and it brought them joy.....you see their happiness, and I know you would be happy to make them smile, but then they just walk away and tell all their friends, without thanking you. Or even acknowledging the fact that you did that for them. The sunset is a gift from Him to you, that moment was made just for you by a Heavenly Father that loves you enough to do that for you. All He wants is a thank you, and for you to just say, I know your there...show me. I don't care how old you are, it will make you feel like a little boy again...Have a wonderful week!!!
Thanks for the clarification. Sorry about the delay - had to fly overseas, so it's been hard getting internet.
I think I sort of know what you mean. There's a fellow called Vilayanur Ramachandran who studies neurology and things like that. Really cool work, like if you've ever read 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat', it's in a similar veing. I recommend you check out his docos ...
Anyway, he and others have done work on 'spiritual feelings', if I can call them that, loosely things relating to feeling meaningful, or connected, or that there's 'something' there. I'm no expert on the field, but I think that we're going to see some interesting work in the next decade or so explaining the neurological basis of these things.
The point of bringing that up is to say, I don't think, when you become an atheist, that that part of your brain gets 'switched off'. When I was a Christian I definitely had the feeling of 'something there', and I've still got it, I just attribute it differently. For example, instead of feeling meaningful about a connection with God, I feel meaning in being connected with other people, giving to charities, that sort of thing. I imagine you do the same things too. There's a definite _drive_ for what might loosely be called spiritual things, so I think I can understand what you mean.
Ya, I agree.....but I've also had some personal experiences with God, knowing that they were God..so I give Him the credit for the experiences i have. I really hope you contiue your search....I find great comfort in understanding who I am and why I am here. I find great peace in seeing prayers answered and in His presence.....thank you for your contributions....I was wondering what happended to you!!! LOL
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