Tag Archives: John

by

Redefining the Christmas Story Dec 1/2012


So I have been in a redefine mood.  I was thinking about this last night.  I have rearranged the furniture in the house.  I have thrown out bags and bags of clothes, things, junk, and papers, that have been cluttering up my house.   We pulled up carpet (well we had a leak and it wrecked the carpet) we put in new hard wood, painted my bathroom.  Finished refinishing my dinning room table and the hutch.  As I think of all the stuff I have done over the past year– I have done alot of stuff! Jeepers!!!  I am not as latharjic as I thought! Great!

Since summer I have been stuck on the bible vs from John chapter One.  I think stuck on is a bad word for it, obsessed with it.  It has been obsessed with me t0o.  I have come across this word in so many books, sermons, converstaions, out of the blue, in the past 6 months there is something that I am supposed to glean from it.

See Below:

John 1

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

First incounter with this verse.  In the summer this verse started haunting me, to the point that during a camping trip I cornered my former pastor and we had a huge discussion on it.  The discussion then went from the word becoming flesh to the word being as he put it digested with in me as a fight against the depression that I suffer from.    He explained that the word- or God’s word became flesh with Jesus.  The word can also be thoughts of God, Spirit of God, Knowledge of God.  Jesus was there in the beginning when the world was made and God had spoken of this through the prophets.  So the word came earth, Jesus came to earth through his birth through Mary.

The word became flesh. A few months ago I was having a bad time and the devil was hammering at me hard.  I was close to walking away from the church.  How can I say that— and be a strong christian.  Well,  I am only strong with God.  My mind was lieing to me at a time when I was very depressed, that my faith was not going to make me better and I was in such heart pain in a dark hole, that I was unable to think straight.   I got through this by holding onto the vs the word became flesh.  I was not going to put flesh to the words that the darkness so desperatly wanted me to say. My mantra became ” I will not put flesh to those words” I repeated it over and over, untill the darkness left.

Hope:  the vs “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  The darkness has not overcome it.  Most of my days I hold this hope.  The light shines beyond the darkness and we have hope and protection in the light.  I have learned that the darkness is not peace but turmoil and screaming.  The light is the place we need to hide in from the darkness, and receive life.

My Nativity.   I have adopted these verses as my nativity story.  My Christmas story.  I am not saying the Nativity did not happen I believe that to be historical fact.   This is the nativity from the Holy Spirit point of view. Jesus is apart of God and the Holy Spirit makes know to us what God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit are about and their love and their word. I think this is what is giving me the peace I have been feeling.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

For now I will stop here more to come later

Till next time……………..

by

Another week a little stronger


To say last week was tough- is an understatement! I am still not feeling like I am on solid ground but I am not on sand either.  I am better.  I was re-reading my posts from last week, what an unbelievable place I was in. Last week was not a wave it was a tsunami, however, tsunamis’ waters do pass on and eventually there is dry ground.   My ground is muddy but drying up.

I wanted to talk about this thing called depression.  (ya like all these posts are not!!) but from a different perspective.  A bible perspective.  Was there depression in the bible.  How do you not see it?   Think of every bible story you know. If you do not know find a bible and read.  King David who gave us so many psalms and writings that show us his ups and downs.  He also shows us his faults and sins in the books about his life.  He crys out for God from the pit, he praised him from there too.  He danced on the streets to show his love for God and he boldly spoke of a loving God who looked after him.  Much of David’s life was spent fleeing from someone trying to kill him. Hiding in caves, fighting great battles against all odds, like Goliath there was always a bigger foe to fight. Sometimes that foe was man, sometimes that foe was evil, sometimes that foe was in his own mind.  What I love about David was his great love for God and not afraid to show it.  He also showed us that God does and will prevail and God’s promises are never broken and true.  Jesus states a lot of his most important messages to us in the bible with the words” truly  I say to you.” God is truth, love, peace, joy, strength, and sometimes God’s truths are just covering you over for protection and fighting darkness when you have no strength to do so.  I am only human and incapable of doing anything with out God.  Some may say well you were doing things last week without God. You were suffering a breakdown without God.  You go to work and shuffle through the day without God.  truly I say to you, no. God gave me life, breathed in my breath.  I could not have made it through some of the pitiful days at work without God’s help.  I would not be here without God’s help.  In the pit I was in God protected me from evil, it was not a dark pit, just a pit that my chemicals in me lead me to.  God did not give me this chemical imbalance , this world and the chemicals in it caused me to be off. If I did not have God I could not have returned from the brink of darkness.  Without God I have no power to forgive, love, have relationships cause God is love and we love cause he first loved us.  As John 15 says, If I remain in Jesus and he in me I can produce good fruit.  That does not mean I will only do good things and only do what God wants me to do, sometimes it means that God protects us by remaining in us to fill us with him so the devil and his thoughts can not take us over.  Depression can blur those lines sometimes but in the end God’s got your back.  God always watches out for his children, and through Jesus I am God’s child and apart of the family.  Jesus died to make me God’s child so the void from the first sin of Adam which separated me from God needed to be bridged and the cross allows us to cross over (no pun intended) to God and be in his Glory, a forgiven child of his family.  By remaining in him and I mean praying, meditating and just continue to work on my relationship with him I am able to feel the Joy that God wants me to have and lead the life he wants me to live by listening to his quiet voice always leading me to a better place.

That is the joy of being a christian, having a loving father to care for me when I can not care for myself.

Lord Thank you for your forgiveness and constant attention to my needs.  When I was unable to praise or pray to you your spirit within me groaned prayers of needs to you.  You heard them and in my pain covered me over with protection and sat with me till the wave left.  Thank you for allowing me to be a child and crawl upon the lap of Jesus and sit with my head on his chest and just be.  Lord all these things I thank and ask for you the name of your son Jesus — Amen.

by

A week later


Well its a week later since my doctor’s apt and 7 days into the new drugs.  I take one in the morning one at night.  Its been an adjustment.  Like when I started with the first one, things happen, the side effects come about and you deal with them.  I have had terrible shakes,then nothing, my heart at times pounds when I am doing nothing, gripping anxiety and ready to crawl out of my skin, I take my anti anxiety med and it calms down and I adventually stop wringing my hands and settle.  This morning I felt a little anxious on the way to church I did really well on the way to church and talked myself down.  The band was playing and I was looking forward to it, good songs, beautiful day.  I was great till I walked into the church.  It hit me like a attack.  I just felt like darkness rushed at me.  It was the strangest thing.  I started to shake, I could feel myself start to panic, I was dizzy, I was having trouble keeping my train of thought – which seems to be happening more these days.  I kept breathing deeply trying to feel calm, I was loosing it.  I took a anxiety med, it calmed a bit, but they were there. We played the first song warm up and then I insisted the band pray.  I asked the Holy Spirit to come to us and protect us I asked for God‘s blessing on us,  then we turned around and played.  The darkness tried to pull in close.  I just sang God’s words in the song and when I was not singing I kept saying ” I lift my eyes to the hills from where does my help come from, the maker of Heaven and Earth.”  By the end of the service I had pushed off the darkness that was taunting me.  I felt better and calmer and back on my game.  My daughter couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me she came up to me after church and wanted to know what was happening with me  her words”you were really bent out of shape what was with you” Can you hear the love.  I told her what was happening I got a hug and a” well your over it now.”  Such sympathy  😉

Its Sunday afternoon I am sitting in my back yard on a beautiful sunny day I am calm now.  I don’t know what happened this morning. What does all this mean? If this is a part of depression it is new to me.  I don’t feel sad, or down, or falling in a hole, I feel relatively ok.  a little closer to what me feels like- at this moment.  The swings of side effects, like before should level off as I get used to the new drug.  I still have no desire to eat and some of that is not wanting to eat either.  I like the weight I have lost, to be honest. And if I was really honest with you, its the darkness I don’t want to leave, which makes me confused. I am involved with helping with fund raising for the starving people in the horn of Africa and I am doing it on purpose to myself.  God is talking to me about this I am not listening all the time, but he is talking to me.

What concerned me the most about today is the rush of the darkness when I walked into the church.  These are things I felt when I was really down in a hole, its things I felt and saw when I was deep in the darkness. I am not in those places right now, I am not sad or hurting or in darkness, it did not engulf me, but the darkness at church it surrounded me, it taunted me, it rushed me and circled, it threw me off.   It is one thing for the darkness to try to push its thorns into yourself when you are down and venerable but when you are feeling mostly ok, maybe a little anxious, that threw me off.  Its hard to fight what is in your mind day after day.  I fell like maybe the depression, or the drugs, or what ever is happening is has opened something I don’t what to be around, or maybe God is allowing it to show me how to trust him completely.  A lutheran pastor I am reading about stated that in trouble God gets the opportunities to show his power and we learn how to trust that power. Maybe today was God’s opportunity to show me his power and wants me to let go of the darkness I am holding onto. Another instant of God talking.  I have not in the past three years remembered my envelope that I get from the church for my offering.  It has the date and a bible vs on it.  I spoke last weekend about the fruits of the spirit and it is kindness, patience, self control, the vs on the envelope was the same one.  God has been calling me to John 15 for the past week and Paul’s talk on the fruits of the spirit.  I need to spend some time with this to where God it leading me.

In the mean time– I am trying to eat- I say that but I will try this week. I do trust God he is Love and loves me dearly  I need to study the fruits of the spirit, and learn to love me a little better.  And I need start working out and get some exercise, maybe it will make me eat.  Maybe switch to decaf coffee as maybe that is not helping my anxiety esp. since I am taking the old anti depressant at night and the new one I take in the morning and I am sure coffee full strength doesn’t help. God continues to take me on this journey and I am holding on.  I need to think what this depression is now- it has changed. I need to think about what is happening and pray.  Till next time. Peace