48 Hours Mystery

I've been a little addicted lately to watching 48 Hours Mystery programs online...why? Not sure...morbid curiosity? Maybe....I know there is evil in this world, and that I probably come in contact with "monsters" (and have, maybe one day I'll post about it) ...chances are that it happens more often than we probably realize, or want to know.

Anyway, this story really has so many special qualities about it, that I want to share it with anyone and everyone who happens here, by the Lord's will and leading:

Live to Tell: River's Edge

Get your hankies out...

Some Thoughts on Self Esteem

A few weeks before I began my summer classes I had stumbled across a website which involved the topic of suicide. Suicide came up a few times in my abnormal psychology course, and finding this website helped me to research this from an "insiders" view. I'm going to share this website here in this blog entry, but with the hope that anyone that follows the links from my site, will do so with respect for the family who was hurt deeply by what had happened. I know the few "regulars" who stop by here from time to time would not disrespect others, however, this information will be open to anyone and everyone who happens to stumble onto my site, just as easily as I find the various sites that I visit. Please, please, please, pay your respects respectfully.

My little excursion began when I found Dragonflies and Waterlilies. I read of a mother's cry for a son who couldn't bear to go on living. She gave a link to his online journal which ends on the day that he takes his own life. From his journal, I found this and this and some recipes that he enjoyed preparing for friends. I also found his dad's blog. I followed these links, and read and read and read, blog entries, comments, etc, to try to find out why... why such a nice young man who is bright and has parents who cherish him so much, would find life so painful and unbearable that he felt he had to take his life through suicide. Why?

I have come to my own conclusions about this, and anyone else who feels inclined to investigate into suicides will come to their own thoughts about it. I simply want to put it out there for others to ponder and pray about, and maybe it will help someone with some insight that might free someone else from the type of bondage and torment that this young man endured. I read the comments from his dad on his journal entries, and paid attention to how and who Mikael answered in his comment section. I read Mikael's thoughts about his mom, and of course, you won't get a full picture of all that went with the few comments on a blog, but they are pieces of a puzzle.

Something that Jred said, I mean quoted, recently seemed to strike me as another piece in this puzzle...and you may or may not agree that this might be at the root:

This law of the dying of self and the magnifying of Christ—is the secret of Christian peace. When Christ is small—and SELF is large—life cannot be deeply restful. Everything annoys us. We grow impatient of whatever breaks our comfort. We grieve over little trials. We find causes for discontent in merest trifles. We resent whatever would hinder or oppose us.

There is no blue sky in the picture, of which SELF is the center. There are no stars shining overhead. It begins and ends in a little patch of dusty floor, with gray walls surrounding it and shutting it in. But when SELF decreases—and Christ increases, then the picture is enlarged and takes in all of heaven’s over-arching beauty. Then the stars shine down into its night and sunshine bathes its day.

Then the life of friction and worry is changed into quietness and peace. When the glory of Christ streams over this little, cramped, fretted, broken life of ours—peace comes, and the love of Christ brightens every spot and sweetens all bitterness. Trials are easy to bear when self is small—and Christ is large.

This lesson has its very practical bearing on all our common, every-day life. Naturally we want to have our own way. We like to carry out our own plans and ambitions. We are apt to feel, too, that we have failed in life, when we cannot realize these hopes. This is the world’s standard. The successful worldling is the one who is able to master all life’s circumstances and make them serve him in his career. He is the man who "increases" until he fills a large place among men. The world has little praise or admiration for the man who "decreases" in his property, brilliance, power, or prosperity.

-- J.R. Miller

These days self esteem (or the lack of it) is lauded as the reason why people suffer the difficulties that we do. Is it really? Was Jesus and His word, the Bible, wrong? Jesus said we need to lay down our flesh, our "self esteem" and make our self worth based only on Jesus and His forgiveness and love. This world says we need to love ourselves first and then we can love our neighbors as ourselves, but the Bible says we need to love God first....who is right?

Last night I was pondering over some of these things, and I thought of how I often am guilty of praying "God give me this" or "Lord please help my friend pass her test".... forgetting the clause that Jesus added to His prayers, to say with really meaning it: "NOT MY WILL BUT THINE BE DONE"

Why do I pray for what I do? Why do I only want some of my friends to get the Lord's favors, and others to "get a lesson" that will set them straight? Is it to see that God's will is accomplished? Or mine? Who am I worshiping with that kind of prayer? My self esteem has no trouble exerting itself into my prayer time, so I don't think the lack of it is at the root of my trouble at all. If anything my self esteem is what gets in the way of truly loving and wanting what Jesus wants, especially if what Jesus wants would be things that would bring me pain and trouble in my flesh.

This creation is truly turned upside down. What we want to think is good for us might actually be our spiritual poison.

I would love to get more feedback and other insights that you may have into these things... I'm sure that I'm missing many pieces to this puzzle, perhaps a piece you may have in your hand... 

New Breedism

 On Herescope (excerpt):

The whole NEW BREED concept is totally unscriptural. The only way they can attempt to prove their false doctrine is to twist, misquote or allegorize the Scriptures. According to the "prophets" all believers are not a part of the NEW BREED because it is reserved for a special quality of Christian in the last days. But Praise God, the Bible refutes this fallacy. On the contrary, it gives all believers the following assurance:

1. All believers are equal in Christ. Galatians 3:28.
2. All believers are new creatures. II Corinthians 5:17.
3. All believers are made righteous by faith, that is of grace. Romans 4:16.
4. All believers are of the seed of Abraham. Romans 4:16.
5. All believers were baptized into one body. I Corinthians 12:13.
6. All believers are members of the body of Christ. I Corinthians 12:14.
7. All believers are part of the ELECT. I Peter 1:2.
8. All believers are a CHOSEN GENERATION. I Peter 2:1, 2.
9. All believers are "born again." John 3:3, 15.
10. All believers are lively stones and a holy priesthood. I Peter 2:5.

The word BREED is not found once in Scripture, much less the term A NEW BREED.[17]

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That second picture with the knight holding the child reminds me of Arthurian legends....

 When King Arthur was born, Merlin took him away and raised him in secret...

http://mortimerjordan.com/T4/Language%20Arts/kingarthur/legend.html 

The Bible tells us that our hope is not in this world, yet the "new Christianity" will have it's adherents believing that Jesus is going to set up His kingdom on this earth, but as Herescopes blog also shows, the way they reshape what the Bible says, has some strange connections with Hitler's philosophies and the New Age doctrines as well. 

We must be wise as serpents while gentle as doves.

Final Thoughts....

Last week was the last week of my summer online classes. My last assignment for my sociology class asked for my thoughts on the political issues and healthcare issues that were discussed in our textbook. These are some of my thoughts as given in my last sociology assignment:

This week has been a difficult one for me because many things occurred this week that were turning points in my life, and they seemed to pivot on the lessons that touched on things with relevance to what I was going through... studying things like healthcare and politics and world situations with these heavy things on my heart really made me focus on these things with the temporariness of life in mind.

Although I am a conservative (probably closest to the Libertarian Party) I find that the textbook is slanted very much in the liberal leftist direction, so it made me a little testy to have to suffer through that bias. However, what I have concluded through all of this is that what it really comes down to is “Who is running this show anyway?” If the “powers that be” people are good and trustworthy, no matter what form of government we have would be good, if the leaders are good. The rest really is all a bunch of hoopla, just a sideshow to keep us all distracted. But if the leaders are bad and untrustworthy, no matter what kind of government we have in place, it still will be rotten.

And as far as healthcare goes, people want something for nothing, and truly there is no such thing. All the people with their hands out wanting freebees without wanting to pay for it will be in for a shock when we get the bill and see the kind of poor service we will endure for a hefty price tag. The saying goes “You get what you pay for”, and that is exactly what the government is going to give, close to nothing, because their story is that it's going to cost next to nothing because it is our money, not theirs, that will be footing the bill.

In their minds we are getting off cheap, so what we will get will be cheap. Thinking about the health problems that my family is going through right now, and the temporariness of life.... makes these thoughts hit me very close to home.

Thank you, Professor B., for this class. Although much of it ran against my ethics and values, I still came away with a richer and deeper perspective on these things, and what it really all boils down to for me is that if the “powers that be” and the general population are good and moral and ethical, all of these things will work together for a good outcome no matter how they decide to structure it. Time will tell how truly good our leaders and their followers really are.

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And, truly as an addendum to the above, I want to also state that in the final end, we do have Someone that is over all the powers of this world, so no matter how good (well, they are "only human" after all) or bad, God has promised us Romans 8:28, that is my anchor, and after all the hurricanes and disasters of this world pass away, it is God who will have sustained those who are His, through it all. 

:)