I've been attending a small home group through my church, Journey Community Church, for about four weeks now. I started this group in an effort to become more connected to members of this church because I have been attending Journey for about four and half years now and know few people. What sparked my interest in this particular group is that they were doing a study on Bill Hybel's book and study guide, "The Power of a Whisper". The sub-title of it is "Having the Guts to Respond." For the past nine years since I had to stop working as a computer programmer I have been trying to figure out what it is that I really want to do when I grow up.
In addition, since I got laid off from the laboratory job in 2009, I have been searching for what my true heart's desire really is in the way of a career or employment. I tried pursing a career in biology, and thus the laboratory job, but my math deficit was a huge barrier to progressing as rapidly as I wanted or needed based on my age. In addition, I really hate math so why would I pursue a career where I had to frequently rely on math skills to do the job properly? No, that career path was more about impressing others with my oft-longed for respect from others for my intelligence. I guess since I always felt that the people in my life didn't think I was intelligent, I wanted to prove that I really was.
What I have discovered is that the problem is not whether I was intelligent or not it is that I had a pride and arrogance problem. The over-the-top arrogance of the scientists at the laboratory job showed me what arrogance and pride is in it's extreme form. It also showed me how I was also prideful and arrogant. I learned a lot about myself and saw how some of my words and actions were not only arrogant but disrespectful, as well.
The point I'm trying to make is that God had to break me down so He could build me up. He had to expose the parts of my personality that were preventing me from obtaining the very things I was striving for. In the years since I was laid off from the laboratory job, (two years, seven months now), I have been diligently seeking God on what I'm really supposed to do with my life. I've asked him to break my heart for what breaks His. The cool thing is that this small group was all about listening to the whisper of God and stepping out to do His will for my life. It was a four week study, one of which I missed because of the wedding in Knoxville, Tennessee. We watched a DVD of Bill Hybel explaining his path of listening to the whisper of God. Then the study guide would ask leading questions to get us to not only listen to the whisper, but to act upon the whispers.
One of the questions was "What reality about our world at large troubles you most these days?" This was a question posed to the group before we watched the fourth session on the DVD. What immediately came to my mind was the abuse and neglect of children, animals, and other individuals without power of their own, like disabled people and elderly people. When the DVD was played and we watched Bill Hybel speak about his own journey of listing to God, he spoke out on helping children and racial reconciliation. It was confirmation for me that I'm on the right path, I've listened to the right voice and God is leading me in the direction He wants me to go.
While He hasn't completely laid out the path and plan He has for me, I am comforted in knowing that I'm on the right path, that my philosophy of putting one foot in front of the other until God shows otherwise, is exactly where God wants me. I also heard Him whisper that my fervent prayers about how I can help these troubled people will be through the healing process, of which I plan on pursuing a career in, dance therapy. Dance therapy was the career I was going to school for in 1979 at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the end of the spring semester in 1979 I had changed my major from dance to psychology. A psychology professor had told me about this "new" field and I thought it was a perfect match for my love of dance and my interest in psychology. I went home after the semester ended and within a month or so I was pregnant with my daughter. So, that career path stalled until my daughter was successfully raised and I had the maturity to deal with difficult emotional and physical issues. The truth is that God needed to do some serious house cleaning in my psyche before I could be any way ready to tackle this challenging new field. Today there is the American Dance Therapy Association and an educational plan to work towards.
So, it's taken me about thirty-one years to get to the point where I can heal enough to actually look at my issues and admit some responsibility for my attitude. I'm encouraged today knowing that I am moving in the right direction and that I am on the right path. The path that God has ordained for me, and trust in Him to let the pieces fall into place and just be open to His healing touch. I serve a Mighty God and trust Him to redeem my life out of the shambles I have made of it in the past thirty-one years.
Praise the Lord!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
My New Best Friend
I put my trust in God for the approval of the appeal to the denial of eligibility for financial aid for my course work at San Diego State University. And God came through once more. I was notified of the approval of the appeal while I was in Knoxville, Tennessee last week for my nephew's wedding. So, I guess God really does want me to continue on my path to get a bachelor's degree in psychology and realize my dream of being a dance therapist. Praise the Lord!!
I praise Him again because of the awesome time I had in Knoxville with my sister and her family and my family. It was filled with easy camaraderie and laughter. I had not seen my sister and her family since 2002. Since then all but the one nephew, whose wedding we were there to attend, had gotten married and produced grandchildren for my sister. I had been praying for this nephew to find a wife for many years. He had come to California a couple of years ago and while I had intermittently prayed that he too would find a mate, my prayers became regular after his visit. So, I am amazed, although I don't know why, that God answered my prayers and provided such a compatible mate for my nephew. They even look like they belong together.
And while the days leading up to the trip had been filled with anxiety for me due to past personal issues with some members of the family, it turned out to be just God-blessed in a huge way. First of all, I was able to visit my sister's new apartment and see the fruits of her labor. God has recently blessed her with success in two businesses that she has built. This is a woman who was born deaf, had been married for 29 years, and had never supported herself financially. The past several years had been especially hard for her since she divorced the father of her children and struggled with all the issues of being a single woman, mother and grandmother. My prayers for her have also been answered since I have been praying fervently for her for more than a decade.
Because of our troubled childhood and her deafness,there had been many fights and misunderstandings between us as we grew up. She is the oldest of the four children in my immediate family and I always looked up to her and wanted to be close to her. The age difference between us is four years, so add to that her birth defect, the loss of our father when we were toddlers, and the turmoil of being raised by a single mother in the 60s and 70s and the circumstances did not lend itself to a warm and fuzzy relationship between us. But thankfully, we have finally gotten past all that and are building a brand new relationship. Indeed, my daughter has even begun to build a relationship with her aunt Susie.
I told my sister that she is now my new best friend and am looking forward to many more visits and maybe even vacationing with her. Like the fabled phoenix rising from the ashes of a fire long since burned, I am building a new relationship out of a troubled and painful past.
I praise Him again because of the awesome time I had in Knoxville with my sister and her family and my family. It was filled with easy camaraderie and laughter. I had not seen my sister and her family since 2002. Since then all but the one nephew, whose wedding we were there to attend, had gotten married and produced grandchildren for my sister. I had been praying for this nephew to find a wife for many years. He had come to California a couple of years ago and while I had intermittently prayed that he too would find a mate, my prayers became regular after his visit. So, I am amazed, although I don't know why, that God answered my prayers and provided such a compatible mate for my nephew. They even look like they belong together.
And while the days leading up to the trip had been filled with anxiety for me due to past personal issues with some members of the family, it turned out to be just God-blessed in a huge way. First of all, I was able to visit my sister's new apartment and see the fruits of her labor. God has recently blessed her with success in two businesses that she has built. This is a woman who was born deaf, had been married for 29 years, and had never supported herself financially. The past several years had been especially hard for her since she divorced the father of her children and struggled with all the issues of being a single woman, mother and grandmother. My prayers for her have also been answered since I have been praying fervently for her for more than a decade.
Because of our troubled childhood and her deafness,there had been many fights and misunderstandings between us as we grew up. She is the oldest of the four children in my immediate family and I always looked up to her and wanted to be close to her. The age difference between us is four years, so add to that her birth defect, the loss of our father when we were toddlers, and the turmoil of being raised by a single mother in the 60s and 70s and the circumstances did not lend itself to a warm and fuzzy relationship between us. But thankfully, we have finally gotten past all that and are building a brand new relationship. Indeed, my daughter has even begun to build a relationship with her aunt Susie.
I told my sister that she is now my new best friend and am looking forward to many more visits and maybe even vacationing with her. Like the fabled phoenix rising from the ashes of a fire long since burned, I am building a new relationship out of a troubled and painful past.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Satisfactory Academic Progress
Apparently, just maintaining a good grade point average is not enough for San Diego State University. Despite the two Bs and an A I got this past semester and a cumulative grade point average of 3.17, I have not maintained "satisfactory academic progress." San Diego State University emailed me that I have exceeded the maximum allowed units required for financial aid eligibility.
Because of the thirty plus years I've been taking college credits and the fact that I've changed majors three times (from dance, to computer science, and now psychology) I have earned more than the number of credits one needs to graduate from college. One hundred and forty seven credits I have earned throughout my college career and I guess San Diego State University objects to that. I do have an appeals process I can utilize, which I have done, but I'm really getting sick of college. I used to love school and I still enjoy learning new things but I am so sick of the arrogance of college professors and now this slap in the face. So, basically, what it all means is that I will have to pay out of pocket for the remainder of the time I need to graduate from San Diego State IF my appeal does NOT go through. I expect it to be approved however, since it's very clear that I still need thirty-nine college units to complete my bachelor's degree in psychology.
It's a power struggle between the "professional student" and the college profs who want you to complete a course of study their way and not your own way. Yeah, well, I've always been one to insist on doing things my own way. I managed to graduate from high school without courses like calculus and physics because of the number of credits I had in other courses and I just needed to take a general math course to fulfill the math requirement for a high school diploma. It's been thirty plus years of skirting the math anxiety issue that I have. I actually believe that I have a math learning disorder, which is a real thing documented in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. I've never had the test for learning disorders but I know that it takes me twice as long to grasp mathematical concepts. I eventually can learn them, I'm just really, really slow at it. I mean, I got As in Algebra but never took a Geometry course and College Algebra was way too fast paced for me and I eventually dropped the course before it would show on my transcript. The math issue is one of the reasons why I didn't continue in the computer science degree. Of course the bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome was a big factor as well.
The professor in the college algebra course assigned vast amounts of homework and my grade was partially based on the homework completed. I, physically, could not do all the homework because a)hand writing is painful after five minutes, and b)it was all on computer and clicking a mouse for more than 2 hours sent me over the edge of pain management. So, I was stuck between a hard place and a rock. My brain requires extra time on math problems but my physical body is too broken to accomplish what I need in the proper amount of time.
I had gotten to the place in my education where I had taken all the courses I could before the prerequisites required that I complete a calculus and/or a physics course. I didn't place high enough on a math entrance exam to take a calculus or physics course because I had skipped all that in high school, and the higher level computer courses required calculus and physics to have been completed.
So, I switched to psychology and have been taking the classes required for that degree and here comes SDSU and shuns me for having too many credits. Oh well. The way I look at it is this: if God is really in this decision of mine to get a bachelor's degree in psychology, then He will make a way for it to get done. Whether it is by an approval of the appeal of the "satisfactory academic progress" standing or just financial resources to pay my tuition, I will remain trusting in the Lord and keep putting one foot in front of the other towards the completion of my educational goals.
I remain God Strong.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Christian Homosexuality
It’s not a coincidence that Friday, May 25, 2012, I had the strong urge to not miss a pastor’s testimony that I knew he was going to give because I’m on the pastor’s prayer team. I had been praying for this guy for two weeks and wondered why I could feel the anxiety from this man about giving his “journey” to the congregation. Even though I had had a long, difficult day of public transport and less than ideal weather I could sense a strong prompting by God to not miss the service that night. So, as the pastor started his story and he got to the part where he reveals that his son is gay, the light clicked on and I understood why God didn’t want me to miss this “My Journey”.
The pastor has written a book about the unconditional love God is calling him to have for his son despite his theological training regarding homosexuality. What makes this all so significant to me is a great number of things. First of all, I grew up with a brother who is gay. It was evident to me as a small child that my brother was a little different from other boys and that he liked boys as much as I did. So, when my brother came out to me when we were both in our thirties it was no big surprise.
Recently, my brother visited me for my birthday and his partner had come to visit as well. I have always been close to my brother and we enjoyed our time together as usual. His partner was a storehouse of information from plants to early Christianity. I learned about same-sex marriages in early Christianity times and discussed the fact that I believed in the inerrant accuracy of the Bible. So, the following days I contemplated our discussions and resolved to spend the summer researching the subject of same-sex marriage, homosexuality and Christianity. Then, two weeks after my birthday celebration, I heard the pastor’s story.
I’m currently a student at San Diego State University studying psychology and have been struggling with defining my future career path. In addition, for the past two and a half years I have been struggling with my role in God’s kingdom and crying out to Him to show me the way He wants me to go. I had tried sticking my toe in the proverbial water a number of times in different ministries but had not felt a good “click” or fit. I’ve been taught by more than one Christian leader to step out in faith concerning where to serve in the kingdom of God. So, I began contemplating that maybe loving homosexuals and leading them to Christ could be the path God was calling me to walk.
So, I purchased the book written by the pastor and found that the day he found out his son was gay was the day before I had been laid off from my job. I worked steadily for over thirty years with never a lay-off or firing from any job so this was a huge blow to my ego and finances. I do not believe the timing of my lay-off and the timing of this man’s son revealing his sexuality are a coincidence either. In addition, this same pastor was the man who delivered a wad of cash to me as a result of my call for help to the church two years earlier in response to my unemployment. I believe it is also not a coincidence that ABC aired a repeat of its show “What Would You Do?” that Friday night. This particular episode was based on situations where people are shown responding to various types of stereotypes such as homosexuality.
It all seemed to clear to me. God is calling me to show the love of Jesus to my brother and others like him. As I finished the pastor’s book it became more evident that God was calling me to step out into this very controversial subject as I read the similarities in the pastor’s walk with God and my own journey. I am a fighter and sojourner and the prospect of being involved with a ministry that would ruffle a lot of feathers in the Christian community is not only challenging to me but VERY appealing. I’ve walked with God for many years and I have always felt that there were a lot of people within the Christian community that just had it wrong. From the Baptists and Catholics to the Pentecostals and Mormons, I believe that we all only have a slight glimpse of what Jesus is really about. There should be no arguments over whether dancing or drums should be banned from church services and no one should be shunned from a church where Jesus is preached as Lord and Savior. He said that the greatest commandment of all is to love God and then to love your neighbor. Well, guess what, our neighbors include homosexuals.
Jesus said that there is no marriage in Heaven. Matthew 22:30 says that the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus by asking him about whose wife a woman would be when she died and went to heaven. If she had been married multiple times and had been widowed the same number of times and all her husbands were in heaven with her they asked Jesus whose wife would she be. Jesus says very clearly that “in the resurrection, they are neither married nor given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.” So really, what does same-sex marriage matter? None of us will be married to each other in heaven because we will all be angels of God in heaven. That is if you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Right-wing Christians like to argue about the “sanctity of marriage” yet Christians have an even higher divorce rate that secular people. Is that sanctifying marriage by getting a divorce? Abuse and infidelity happens in Christian marriages just as much as non-Christian marriages so why are Christians so vocal about the “sanctity of marriage”? Is it sanctifying to abuse and/or be unfaithful to your spouse? I think not.
So, if the church keeps kicking out and shunning all the people who are homosexuals how can they get to know Jesus as Lord and Savior? And those who actually do profess a faith in Christ, where can they go to worship and fellowship with other believers? Most Christians are too busy thumping their Bibles, pointing to the books of the Bible, Romans, and Leviticus, and wagging their fingers at certain people to the exclusion of them from the body of Christ. Jesus says we are to love one another. We are to do to others as we would want others to do to us. Jesus ate with “sinners”, the tax collectors and prostitutes and other groups of people who society had shunned. He loved them all. He didn’t say you have to change who you are to follow me. He just said love me and love others.
Contemporary preachers interpret that to mean that what follows is a change in people, therefore, once you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior that you will stop sinning. Really?! How many “Christians” have sex outside of marriage, get divorced, hurt other people, cuss or steal property from others or worse? Are we supposed to shun them as well? Some “Christians” will say yes, we are to shun them. But they are wrong - Jesus did not shun anyone so neither should we. It’s about L-O-V-E. Love Others Very Equally. (Yeah, I know the acronym is kind of silly.) But the message is not - love others equally. That includes homosexuals and Christians.
I remain,
godstrongpatty
The pastor has written a book about the unconditional love God is calling him to have for his son despite his theological training regarding homosexuality. What makes this all so significant to me is a great number of things. First of all, I grew up with a brother who is gay. It was evident to me as a small child that my brother was a little different from other boys and that he liked boys as much as I did. So, when my brother came out to me when we were both in our thirties it was no big surprise.
Recently, my brother visited me for my birthday and his partner had come to visit as well. I have always been close to my brother and we enjoyed our time together as usual. His partner was a storehouse of information from plants to early Christianity. I learned about same-sex marriages in early Christianity times and discussed the fact that I believed in the inerrant accuracy of the Bible. So, the following days I contemplated our discussions and resolved to spend the summer researching the subject of same-sex marriage, homosexuality and Christianity. Then, two weeks after my birthday celebration, I heard the pastor’s story.
I’m currently a student at San Diego State University studying psychology and have been struggling with defining my future career path. In addition, for the past two and a half years I have been struggling with my role in God’s kingdom and crying out to Him to show me the way He wants me to go. I had tried sticking my toe in the proverbial water a number of times in different ministries but had not felt a good “click” or fit. I’ve been taught by more than one Christian leader to step out in faith concerning where to serve in the kingdom of God. So, I began contemplating that maybe loving homosexuals and leading them to Christ could be the path God was calling me to walk.
So, I purchased the book written by the pastor and found that the day he found out his son was gay was the day before I had been laid off from my job. I worked steadily for over thirty years with never a lay-off or firing from any job so this was a huge blow to my ego and finances. I do not believe the timing of my lay-off and the timing of this man’s son revealing his sexuality are a coincidence either. In addition, this same pastor was the man who delivered a wad of cash to me as a result of my call for help to the church two years earlier in response to my unemployment. I believe it is also not a coincidence that ABC aired a repeat of its show “What Would You Do?” that Friday night. This particular episode was based on situations where people are shown responding to various types of stereotypes such as homosexuality.
It all seemed to clear to me. God is calling me to show the love of Jesus to my brother and others like him. As I finished the pastor’s book it became more evident that God was calling me to step out into this very controversial subject as I read the similarities in the pastor’s walk with God and my own journey. I am a fighter and sojourner and the prospect of being involved with a ministry that would ruffle a lot of feathers in the Christian community is not only challenging to me but VERY appealing. I’ve walked with God for many years and I have always felt that there were a lot of people within the Christian community that just had it wrong. From the Baptists and Catholics to the Pentecostals and Mormons, I believe that we all only have a slight glimpse of what Jesus is really about. There should be no arguments over whether dancing or drums should be banned from church services and no one should be shunned from a church where Jesus is preached as Lord and Savior. He said that the greatest commandment of all is to love God and then to love your neighbor. Well, guess what, our neighbors include homosexuals.
Jesus said that there is no marriage in Heaven. Matthew 22:30 says that the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus by asking him about whose wife a woman would be when she died and went to heaven. If she had been married multiple times and had been widowed the same number of times and all her husbands were in heaven with her they asked Jesus whose wife would she be. Jesus says very clearly that “in the resurrection, they are neither married nor given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.” So really, what does same-sex marriage matter? None of us will be married to each other in heaven because we will all be angels of God in heaven. That is if you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Right-wing Christians like to argue about the “sanctity of marriage” yet Christians have an even higher divorce rate that secular people. Is that sanctifying marriage by getting a divorce? Abuse and infidelity happens in Christian marriages just as much as non-Christian marriages so why are Christians so vocal about the “sanctity of marriage”? Is it sanctifying to abuse and/or be unfaithful to your spouse? I think not.
So, if the church keeps kicking out and shunning all the people who are homosexuals how can they get to know Jesus as Lord and Savior? And those who actually do profess a faith in Christ, where can they go to worship and fellowship with other believers? Most Christians are too busy thumping their Bibles, pointing to the books of the Bible, Romans, and Leviticus, and wagging their fingers at certain people to the exclusion of them from the body of Christ. Jesus says we are to love one another. We are to do to others as we would want others to do to us. Jesus ate with “sinners”, the tax collectors and prostitutes and other groups of people who society had shunned. He loved them all. He didn’t say you have to change who you are to follow me. He just said love me and love others.
Contemporary preachers interpret that to mean that what follows is a change in people, therefore, once you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior that you will stop sinning. Really?! How many “Christians” have sex outside of marriage, get divorced, hurt other people, cuss or steal property from others or worse? Are we supposed to shun them as well? Some “Christians” will say yes, we are to shun them. But they are wrong - Jesus did not shun anyone so neither should we. It’s about L-O-V-E. Love Others Very Equally. (Yeah, I know the acronym is kind of silly.) But the message is not - love others equally. That includes homosexuals and Christians.
I remain,
godstrongpatty
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