Can you look at creation and not believe? Can you see the wonder of a new born baby and not believe? Can you pray for grace, forgiveness, and good test results, and not really believe when the truth is right there in front of you? I choose to believe. I have really wrestled with this for the past week as how to present Christian belief as so not to offend anyone, and then I thought, "Why should I be politically correct? It is what it is". A friend and I have a mutual friend who is a self proclaimed atheist. This person attends "church" on Sundays - not really a church but a meeting of the mindless minds, where everything is permissable, and you can be whatever you want to and it is OK. This person claims to have read the whole Bible and dismisses it as just a novel and not a very good one at that. But when asked, this person cannot prove Jesus is not God and Savior: that He indeed existed and still exists today. Whenever we are all together, I do not push my ideas and beliefs, but continue to pray before eating (which seems to be very offensive to this person) praise God for answered prayers, and thank God for the good things in my life. Just believing in God seems to set this persons nerves on edge. I just calmly go about the way I normally act. We were discussing a movie which featured someone as being demon-possessed (The Rite). Of course this person would not even acknowledge the existence of the devil ( because that would also justify the existence of God). I pray daily that I can somehow persuade this person (or at least put a seed of Christian belief in their mind) to come to the knowledge that God was, is, and always will be . And that the Bible is the true Word of God. "All Scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, correcting, and training in righteousness".
2 Timothy 3:16
A few blogs ago I expounded on my early Catholic upbringing. I certainly was not criticizing any other denomination, but just relating some silly things that happened in my life. I learned before I was a teen that there were many discrepancies in my religious training, and chose to follow what I believed to be true - the Holy Scripture. Although I was an adult before I was truly saved by the cleansing blood of Jesus. And on that note, I shall continue the saga of the poor little Italian Catholic girl in Chicago.
One of my best friends at the time was an only child; shy and quiet child (imagine that for a friend of mine) who also attended Catholic school with me in the same grade. I clearly remember the first day of kindergarten ( I was only 4 at the time). She cried so very hard at being left at school that she actually threw up on the newly polished school room floor as we all sat Indian style in a circle. I suppose I remember it so well as she sat right next to me. I can still hear the other uniform clad students (girls with navy blue pleated skirts with straps and white blouses, and boys with tan shirts and dress pants - also ties) gagging, hollering Yuk (yes, hollering in the classroom) !!!! while the whole time Sister was trying to instruct us not to DARE follow suit. So much for the first day of school!
I always wanted to 'share" things with the Sisters - like the time I told Sister that my Mommy was sitting on my Daddy's lap, kissing him. I got into trouble for that - Sister reported to my Mother who admonished (very severely as was her manner) me to never, I mean never, repeat what happened at home. Shortly after that, a Sister was sitting on Santa's lap one Christmas!!! I was horrified--- little did I know that Santa was another Sister. It seems strange to me that I remember all of those things, and hardly any of the daily Religious classes we had.
It is still very hot here in NW Arkansas, with very little rain. Most of the people have let their gardens go, not watering them as it seems to do no good. We always stop a a local produce farmette, where the produce is always so wonderful. Everything is very sparse and prices are higher than usual. So we thank God for what we do have, and pray for rain and cooling weather.
No comments:
Post a Comment