Pause, breathe, smile

Please, allow me to vent and to listen to myself talk.  And come along, if you want, on a trip through my mind (I apologize in advance for how the messy it is😉.):

Are you exhausted?  I am.  I am sick and tired of all the craziness out there, all the chaos, fighting, hate, lies, fear-mongering, violence, increasing prices (for less product or services), natural disasters, wars, rumors of wars, AI this-and-that, Big Pharma, social deviance/immorality, efforts to force people to tolerate social deviance/immorality, political posturing and mudslinging and nonsense, etc.  

I'm done with it.  I just so done with it all.  "You can stop the world now, God.  We wanna get off."  

I am sick of both social media and the news - because everyone just wants to fight, scream their opinions, demand their way, calls names, make accusations, and force everyone else to agree with them and do things their way.  Everything's an "us vs them" thing, and "if you don't agree with 'us' then you're a bad bad person who shouldn't be here."  It's sick.  And everyone reacts to soundbites and snippets, instead of getting the whole story and wisely responding.  There are no attempts to understand, to really listen, to connect, to talk through things, to be tolerant of other opinions.  (Maybe younger people don't know this because they've been fed bad definitions, but tolerance used to be about respectfully agreeing to disagree with someone, allowing others to have different opinions, even ones you don't like or agree with.  But now - due to social brainwashing - it's about supporting, affirming, condoning everyone else's view, over and above your own... or else you're "intolerant.")  

Ah, yes, praise God for hell-bound vipers!

In a recent Reddit Reformed post, a Calvinist celebrates the birth and dedication of another wretched, depraved, hell-bound viper-in-a-diaper wonderful little innocent baby!

Of course, I myself believe that babies are wonderful little innocent blessings from God, and so I celebrate the birth of all babies and congratulate parents on baby dedications.

But I can... because I'm not a Calvinist.

Calvinists, however, hmm?  I know they truly love their children and praise God for them, feeling like they are (I hope) blessings and sweet little bundles of joy.  

But I wonder if Calvinist parents have ever read these quotes of Calvinists' own views and teachings about babies and young children.  (I've already shared many of these before, but a bunch are new.)

Because if they did, then maybe they wouldn't be so quick to view them as sweet little bundles of joy, but more like evil little bundles of depravity.  Maybe they wouldn't be so quick to praise the Lord for that "blessing," but instead they'd feel remorse that they brought more evil into the world, more wicked hell-bound God-haters.  

Congratulations on the births of all your children, Calvinst parents.  (But a word of caution: Watch your backs from now on, and sleep with one eye open.)

You know you're getting old when...

 

Anyone else? (Thank you, Nate...)

[If you don't want to read this really long post, hang in there because I'll eventually publish it as a series of smaller posts.]

Oh my goodness, does anybody else feel this song, too?

NF - Oh Lord

"What are y'all doing down there?  I don't know, Lord."

I don't know, Lord.

What a mess.

God help us.

God help me.

"Sometimes I look up to the sky and wonder, 'Do you see us down here, O Lord?'"

Turn it up even LOUDER!

You know those songs that you always have to play as loud as possible, and even louder if you could?

I've got some of those.  [To name only five, there's Numb from U2 and Chlorine, Downstairs, Choker, and Jumpsuit from Twenty One Pilots.  I'm addicted to Twenty One Pilots (musical geniuses)!  And so are my husband and sons.]  

And the only place I can play them as loud as I want is when I'm driving alone in the car.  That's MY time.  An introvert's dream vacation.  I can play my music as loud as I want and sing along... and there's no one to interrupt or complain.  (But I do worry that I might've butt-dialed someone and that they're listening to me sing loud and proud.)

And this reminds me: You parents know what we're supposed to do when kids complain about our music, right?

White horses and a cup of tea (part 3: my white horses)

[I'm working my way through this slowly.  Click here for part 1 and part 2 of this series.] 

First, here's The White Horse Parable again (my version):

A man and his son owned a field that they farmed for a living.  And one day, they found a white horse in the field.

"Oh, what a blessing," said the farmer.  "A free horse."

But then the horse started tearing up their plants.  

"Oh, this is terrible.  What a curse!" cried the farmer.  

But then they caught the horse and tamed it and were able to use it to farm the field.

"Oh, what a blessing," said the farmer.

But then the son was thrown off the horse, broke both arms, and couldn't farm for months, reducing their sales and income.

"Oh, what a curse," said the farmer. "I wish this horse never came to us.  Why, God?  Why!?!"

But then a war started, and the army issued a draft.  But because the son had broken arms, he was excused from the draft and didn't have to fight in the war.

"Oh, what a blessing!" praised the farmer.

Another one bites the dust

[Happy Easter, y'all!]

I just found this (sad!) on Reddit Reformed: What happened to my conviction and love for God?

Reformedhabeshagirl said:

Hello brothers and sisters

I have always been a Christian and grew up fearing the Lord. I remember being convicted about my sins as young as 7 or 8 years old. I became Reformed around age 17 and I am 23 now. I have always been a repentant believer. My heart used to break when I sinned, and I love the Lord. I studied my Bible a lot, prayed often, and was very interested in theology, sermons, and everything related to faith.

The problem is that my heart has lost all desire for the things I used to love. I stopped listening to sermons and I don’t want to study my Bible anymore. Any interest I had in Bible study or discussions about the Lord only came when my ex-boyfriend shared things with me every day or when it came from my pastor every Sunday. Now my heart feels hard. I am not convicted about the things I used to mourn over.

I distanced myself from my amazing best friend and mentor who helped me grow so much in my faith and in my understanding of sin. I broke up with my boyfriend, and now I don’t even feel anything about it. I know he would be the best husband in the world and that I’m missing out, but I’m still not sad about it.

I’m not sad about not praying or studying the Bible anymore. I’m not interested in anything at all.  I feel numb and emotionless.

I’m starting to think that maybe I was never saved, since I firmly believe that salvation cannot be lost. But if I was never saved, why did I feel all those convictions before? Now I don’t care about any of it. I want to care again. I want to miss the Lord like I used to, but I have no interest at all.

Am I lost?

Hardest Spiritual Lesson #9: Humility and Brokenness

The last of the "Hardest Spiritual Lessons" posts: 

Humility and Brokenness

White horses and a cup of tea (part 2: A theme)

(picking up where we left off in part 1...)

And that brings us to this year.  This year I wasn't going to make any New Year's resolutions.  I was like "meh, who cares?"

But then, two things grew naturally in my mind, goals for this year.  (The first one will take several posts, and then I'll share the second one after that.)

(Plus, I think I'll keep trying the "talk less, listen more" resolution, too.  I could always use more of that.  And I think I'll add "try to stop speaking negative things."  That won't be easy.  I do far too much of that.):

A Theme: 

This is going to be my "white horse" year.  

"What's a 'white horse'?" you ask.  

Well, I'm glad you asked.  I'll tell you.  

Another great sermon: What if love meant more than you thought?

Before I get to part 2 of "White Horses and a cup of tea," here's another great sermon from Willow Creek (they're on a roll): 

What If Love Meant More Than You Thought?

A sermon like this is especially needed in this "outrage culture" where people spend their days looking for things to be angry about, for people to lash out at.  Ugh.

But there's a better way.  It doesn't have to be like this.  We don't have to let the news and social media lure us into an ever-increasing spiral of hopelessness and discouragement, antagonizing us into hating life and everyone around us.