My story, not a sermon... I am not licensed for that.

I have continued to ponder  why I am wanting to tell this story.  I've come to realize that in order for me to move ahead I need to conquer this fear of rejection.  I am not a preacher and it is not my desire to tell anyone how to live.  Seriously.  I firmly beleive that we all have to figure this out for ourselves.  If you choose the same path as me, then I will welcome you on the journey, if not I won't hold a grudge. 

I know the inquistion is  an extreme example, but anyone trying to force their beliefs on another is beyond understanding to me.  Just because you may or may not believe the same as me, doesn't diminish what I beleive, and I am still a student here trying to figure it out myself.  It's highly personal I get that, and beleive it or not I am interested in others faith.  I still recall the first Muslim person I got to really know and how he never tried to convert us but just talked about his faith, and I realized how so many of his struggles were similar and I deeply respected his faith. 

In our society where xenophobia seems to becoming more commonplace again, I often shudder to see Christains participate, I know it is cliche but I don't think that is What Jesus Would do? 

But I digress, that isn't really the point of this story, I only mean to tell my story.  It is simple enough in beginining, I grew up in a church that I loved.  I consider many of the people there to be family, and when we moved back here one of the pluses was going back to that church.  I was saved when I was eleven and while I would have considered myself close to God then, now I realize how little I understood.

In high school I really started to question church, religion and people. While I still  believed, I made choices that were contrary to what I was taught.  I had a very hard time owinng up to it and a wedge  there wasbetween God and I.  As I went off to college and saw a whole new world, I kept waltzing on the line between being a Christian and going other ways.

We are not really talking big deals here, I lived with my boyfriend, I drank some, l wasn't always perfect.  I wasn't really all that bad either.  However there was the constant shadow of guilt around me to, I felt what I was doing was ultimately wrong, and I found myself hard to live with. After a few wrong steps down that path, it was easier and easier to keep walking the wrong direction. For me that resulted in depression, and more bad choices and in the end all those bad choices let me to places mentally I didn't really want to go.  Seriously dark, I shudder to think of the things I nearly did.

There were times I came crawling back to God and straightened up and tried to make my bad choices good.  But I don't think I ever really got close that close to God,  I think I always kept a distance, after all I wasn't worthy, I made some really dumb mistakes.  If only I hadn't, I had been warned an awful lot.

In fact it took my world to come crashing down around me.  When I separated from my husband, had to move out of my house, had to make some of the hardest choices in my life. I just surrendered.  I knew my way wasn't working and I just let go and let God as they say.

I was taught that God will forgive all, all you have to do is ask.  Jesus paid the ultimate price for all mankind.  I realized that even though I had asked for that forgiveness and received it from God I certainly hadn't forgiven myself.  I think it is sad I had to be stripped of so many things I held dear in order to come to these conclusions. To realized that that faith I accepted into my heart as an eleven year old was still there, and that I could count on God.

He did restore to me so many things I held dear, my family is whole again.  While we are not perfect and still growing in the Lord, I still marvel at the fact that we are together.  I marvel when I think of how broken my heart was last year at this time, and how joyful it is now.  I have the deep desire to know more and keep relishing in learning more aboug God, I have a billion questions, and so many questions answered.  I have hope now, of turning this life around into something better than I could have imagined a year ago.

I want to share because I think there are some people who don't know this about me and might even be shocked.  There are some who may think Nora found God and know she assume I am going to be judgemental.  Which isn't the point at all, the point is that my life was not working and was fundamentally flawed.  Whille I know everything is not going to be perfect from now on, I do know I who to rely on to get through it. I could slap myself for letting it go on so long.

I also wanted to share because I am not ashamed and I don't want to hide anymore. So there you have it.  My story, nothing more nothing less, make of it what you will.

I have a story I want to tell, should I?

I got an email today from an aunt with a letter from a cousin of mine.  She is a career missionary and served most of the last 20 years or so in Kenya, a few years ago she felt called to certain country formerly ruled by the Taliban. I know our family has often been concerened for her safety in a country where teaching the Gospel is not allowed.  In fact some, maybe even me, at the time I heard of her going there, thought it was foolish and dangerous. I mean I respected her convictions but wondered if it was the right thing to do.

Today I feel ashamed to have thought that.  Proselyting  is something I have viewed with skepticism for some time.  I grew up in a Baptist Church and as you may know, witnessing to others about your relationship with Christ is one of the many things we are called upon to do.  This is something I struggle with.  Perhaps it is as simple as I am scared of others rejection.  I really do hate rejection, I take it to heart as part of my self worth, more than I should.  Perhaps it more about my lack of knowledge, I doubt I could argue with someone and quote scripture to them.  Sometimes I think it is my social conscience, I hate people who tell others what to do. What gives them the right?

However, I do think I have been the receipient of some amazing grace and want to share it, despite what you may think of me.  I do like discussion and don't always think people have to beleive people have to beleive the same as me.  I just want to share my story.  After I all I have a cousin who beleives so strongly she is literally putting her life in jeapordy and here I am keeping silent. 

Until next time that is.  The entry got pretty long so I decided to break it up a bit.

Thank God we were in the pool already!

Okay the mood around here has gotten much too serious.  I don't like that for very long.  My life is never serious for long.

The boys and I have been taking swim lessons this past week.  I say "and I" because at 2 Max is in a Mommy and Me class where we both get in.  Z the big man is in his own class and seems to be doing well on all accounts, I don't see him since I am in a different pool with little brother at the same time.

I have been excited about this for a while, for the last two years I tried to get us registered in Las Cruces, but it they were hard to get into. (Too many people wanted to take them.)  I hoped  that wouldn't be a problem here and have been anxously awaited the announcement in the paper to register.

I was so excited about the prospect I even bought a swimming suit back in March or April.  I spied one at Target (you prounounce that Tar jae if you want to sound fancy).  It is a great suit, brown with turquoise accents, my favorite color combo of the season. I was even feeling so confident to get a three piece, tankini top with bottoms and a skirt.  It has a halter top and is somewhat low cut.  I even had my mother and sister's with me for second and third party affirmations. Girls you know how hard it is to find a suit you love, especially if you are over a certain size! This is a similar suit since I spent so much time explaining it. 

However as you can guess if I am telling you all about this there is a dark brown side to this story. 

Max is 2, 2 years olds are particluar, hence the moniker terrible twos.  He clings to me like a scared cat.  You know the one clinging on for dear life and trying to get on top of your head.  I thought after a few days of this he would become comfortable and particpate in the class more.  It depends on the day.  On Thursday I thought I had found the perfect scenario.  I leaned against the wall and he was more comforable letting his feet float out and then he even wanted to turn around.  I was thrilled.  Although he was still clinging to my suit as he turned to face out.  Once we got all turned around we started floating out in the pool.  Sucesss!!!  Of course it was around then I felt something funny on my back and realize my halter had come untied, freeing the girls.

Luckily none of the dads brought kids that day it was just us mommies, and the sweet instructor helped fix me up.  No one pointed and laughed in front of me at least.  It wasn't quite as bad as the dreams I used to have where I showed up to school and somehow had forgotten to wear clothing. Oh and guess what? We have another week coming up, I can't wait!

I tend to get a bit worked up about this...

I received an email recently with a photo of a grave without a headstone, claiming it was Casey Sheehan's grave the son of Cindy Sheehan.  This email went on to tell about how Sheehan hadn't even raised her son and that he had been raised by his father because she gave up custody and how she had given up custody of another son to her latest ex-husband. Essentially the email said, she's a bad mother and a bad example.

According to Snopes this email is false, and about the only things correct in it are her name, her sons name, that he died in Iraq and she is a war protestor. 

Whether you agree with her politics or not, is it right to attack people's character with lies?  I think most of us can agree that is not. Very few of us would not knowingly spread such rumors about people, and be very upset if lies were spread about us.

Yet most of us do it every day. We get an email and we forward it to everyone in our address book.  There are rarely if ever any sources to back up these claims.   We rarely bother to check them if there are. 

Recently I received another with some very interesting statistics about our troops in Iraq that claimed the media misrepresents the situation.  It even had a link to a US Military web page as a source, however the link didn't go to a page that was even related to the email, nor did a search of the website reveal  verify any statistics.  Unable to verify the facts, I deleted it, I refuse to pass  on possible lies.

It is not just people maligned of course, there are companies and products hurt by this form of attack as well.  It gets to the point that you don't know what to believe.  So when something actually valid comes along, the tendency to discount it is high, unless you feel like taking time to check the source.

Therein lies one of the problems with the internet, false information and half truths abound. The reason why I just am not sure I could ever trust Wikipedia about much of anything.

This isn't a diatribe against forwards but I would like to encourage caution, words are powerful and they can cut and hurt.  We all have a responsibility to not pass on lies, gossips or half truths repeated out of context.  Just like we do in real life.

 

By the way, if you heard from a little birdie that I am really an alien posing as a wise and good looking woman who shops at Target after using Purell hand gel to keep away germs and happens to herd nerfs, well it is only partly true.