Disillusioned and Questioning

The nice thing is that not many people read my blog, since it's been months and months since we've posted anything. So i can use this more as a release than a platform. 

I just think it's terrible that it's come to this...
no longer are we 'red' or 'blue' states 
we're either pro chick-fil-a or anti chick-fil-a. 


I think it's ridiculous that an outspoken Christian man is being blasted for his views because they are different and that the masses have connected his views with 'hate'. 


I think it's ridiculous that many churches are holding up homosexuality as the platform 'sin' on which to stand against. Sin is sin. 


Do I believe that homosexuality is a sin according to the Bible?
Yes I do, right along side gluttony, gossip, lust, anger, and hate.
There is NO ONE righteous, NOT ONE.


But why is it that if I choose to agree with what I believe scripture says, that makes me a hate monger? 
Why is it that many of my friends whom I truly believe love and follow Jesus ardently disagree with me?
Why can we all read the same words of scripture and walk away with such opposing views?


Does that make one of us more accurate? 


Why are there some that are incredibly sure THEY are right...on both sides of the argument? 


When I or anyone who calls themselves Christ followers start to throw around insults and negative comments against others who claim the same name, they are falling short of Christ's command:


"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 


If that is the command my Lord gave me, then I must learn to love those who claim Christ even when their views don't match up with mine.


I long to understand the other viewpoint, not because I want to adopt it, but because I feel  perspective is key in loving well. The reason we are to love one another is because Christ loved us first. He loves us even when we continue to get it wrong. His love for us doesn't increase when we get something right. He IS love, so His ability to love is consistent. 


This is where my heart breaks, I think mainly because I do want to love others, and I have a hard time understanding how one can not only disagree with a fellow Christian, but then stand up with the rest of the world and make fun of/criticize someone for s their beliefs.  


“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."


I'm okay with the world hating me, I'm heartbroken when people who I believe follow Jesus hate the things in which I find deep value. 


While I know what I believe and allow those beliefs to shape my decisions, I also try to guard against allowing my beliefs to alienate those I love - on both sides of this travesty. 
I want to know folks as people, not as viewpoints.  As another blogger and worship leader stated plainly - "relationship, relationship, relationship"


Instead of getting angry at the other point of view, I want to talk with folks, get their perspective. Not so they can try and change my mind or I can try and change theirs. 
I'm no one's Holy Spirit. 
I want to know folks as people - hurting, happy, goofy, struggling, passionate, exhausted, introverted, extroverted people, not as viewpoints. 


Deep. Sigh. 


Disillusioned by this country and the state of things is the only way I can put it, but it doesn't even begin to describe the feeling of utter helplessness and despair I'm feeling.


I'm tired of red and blue
I'm tired of left wing and right wing
I'm tired of liberal or conservative
I'm tired of feeling like the constitution doesn't apply to all. 
I'm tired of pro CFA or anti CFA.
I'm tired of the enemy distracting me from loving others in spite of where they stand on issues.
I'm tired of this deep feeling of heartache at the world and it's state.




Come Lord Jesus, Come. 

Injustice

I'm sitting here in kind of shock that Casey Anthony was found innocent from a crime of which I believe she was guilty. And as I watched the tweets and facebook posts stack up with outrage and anger a question grew in my head.

"So, who cares if everyone is upset? What ACTION is it going to lead me to?"

What good is getting angry or upset if it doesn't lead to action?

We just celebrated Independence Day, everyone knows about July 4th, 1776. If not I'm not a historian and I don't want to try and sound all intelligent for the sake of my own narcissistic need. The bottom line is those guys were deeply upset about the injustices one government was pouring upon them and therefore it drove them to action.

As a new parent I am beyond words upset that a woman, a parent, a MOTHER possibly could do something this evil and vile and get away with it. But what good is getting upset? How can I change the system? Maybe I can't, but what I can do is realize that for every Casey Anthony case, there are probably hundreds of thousands of abused, murdered and trafficked children in our world that I barely ever take the time to think about and most of whom never have a voice. And when I do take the time to think about them or the problem in general it's because I'm at a conference where the issue has been placed in front of me by I speaker I'm so enamored to hear because their latest book tickled my ears, I want to hear them talk more about it rather than take to heart the unspeakable injustices delivered to children. I don't know what I can do to help, but I know there is something I can do. I know it will begin with prayer. I don't know how our justice system got it wrong except to say my prayer needs to start emulating Amos' words: "Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." (Amos 5:24)



And yet, at the same time...



If I want God's justice now, am I welcoming it, asking for it for myself as well? Or do I just want it for the most evil of evil people? Where is the line drawn? Child killers? Rapists? What about 'regular murders'? For that matter Jesus said if you hate someone, you've murdered them in your heart...so there you go. What an overwhelmingly humble and conflicting feeling. "I'M AS GUILTY OF SIN AS CASEY ANTHONY". Go ahead, say that a few times and see how you feel...

Oh Jesus - Your mercy is for everyone. I'm so angry that people like Casey Anthony get of innocent in this life, but I know Your Justice is perfect and I know Your Love is limitless. I'm so glad You're God and I'm not! God I pray for Casey Anthony, her family, her friends. I have no idea what in the world they are feeling right now...



Bottom line - let your outrage from injustice lead to positive life-change! Let your outrage come not just from the pop-culture villains like Casey Anthony and the like. Let it come from the countless evil men and women out there who exploit and abuse children every day. Let that outrage lead you to do something about it! Otherwise, don't waist your time posting some trite response to a lack of justice in a world we already knew lacked justice! Jesus said either be hot or cold, but not lukewarm.

Be salt.

Be light.

Airport...waiting...waiting

Tim here! So we got to CLT airport this morning around 11. It's amazing how God has continued to grow our faith continually through this experience. As we were checking bags at the automatic check-in kiosk up popped a message that said "you do not have seats for 1 or more your segments". So here we are thinking "Alright, what exactly does that mean?" Well, the ticket agent came over and explained that while we all had seats from Philly to Rome only I a seat from Charlotte to Philly - they had overbooked the flight and consequently neither Beth, nor Ang had seats (obviously, that meant Ty as well). They said they would have to see about bumping someone on the Philly flight, but nothing about a 'plan B' was ever mentioned. So the apprehension and worry began to poke it's little, ugly head. After we got to the gate, the agent there said "we'll just have to see if someone is willing to be bumped from this flight." Same song and dance. Not very reassuring, huh?! And it seemed like it was a dance Ang had danced about a week ago trying to get to Texas and frankly, it wasn't a song or dance I wanted to participate in! Sitting there waiting for any word from our flight, I noticed there was a flight to Philly leaving about an hour earlier than ours across the concourse and so I sent Ang and Beth to check with U.S. Airways' Special Services to see what could be done - if anything - to get them on that flight. It was nice to finally get a "here's what happens if you don't get on this flight" response. We were to take the 6pm direction flight from Charlotte to Rome, if need be. Thankfully, we got seats on our original flight and I am standing at the power station charging my tech tools for our first leg of this trip. God, it seems is using this experience to grow our faith in His provision, our patience and the ability to not panic in the face of changing plans.
"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness...On Christ the Solid Rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand!"

See you guys either in Philly later tonight or tomorrow in Rome!

Italy

Ang here. It's 11:42. Tim is so excited he had to go run, otherwise he won't be able to sleep. It's absolutely amazing how God has orchestrated this trip. 8 weeks ago Matt and Mel asked us to come and I had tiny faith and decided Tim would go. Then it looked like Tim and I would go and we would send Ty to TX. (I couldn't leave him an ocean away.) Then my mom called and asked if she could be the nanny. Super! Her dream trip w/Ty. All the money came together. We've gotten all the passports. I have a big God. I'm glad he puts up with me and shows me his power. Our flight leaves CLT @ 2:35pm. Then we leave PHL at 4:40 and arrive in RCO @ 8:50 Wednesday morning. We'll spend the day in Rome seeing the Coliseum, Pantheon, Vatican and whatever else we can get our hands on. Then we'll take the train to our resort in Livorno (google it) on the beach! It's only a smidge from Pisa so I hope we get there one day. Stay tuned to our adventures!

Ciao!
Ang, Tim, Ty and Tutu

What a year

It's Ang. What a year so far! I turned 30 (blech) in February. In May we found out we're finally pregnant! What a journey! Don't think we'll find out what it is, but Wednesday is that sonogram. Just returned from a 7 day cruise, so I wanted to give you the low down.

Thursday night I couldn't sleep - too excited so we left at 4am on Friday. We took an extra day in Cocoa Beach just so we could hang out and get our vaca started.

Saturday morning we took the shuttle to the port and they flagged me for being preggo eventhough I had ALREADY turned in my Dr.'s note! But it was fine, just had to sign another paper.

We got on the boat and I was digging in my bag and sliced my finger on Tim's razor. So I went down to get a band-aid and they charged me $2.19 for 6! Why can't I just have one? Then as we left for dinner I ripped the door over my toes and skinned them up some more. Alas we departed and set sail.

Sunday we docked in the Bahamas and we didn't have an excursion planned so we decided to take a horse and buggy tour. Once we got in the buggy, we realized maybe it wasn't such a good idea. We were going through most of Nassau that was closed and looked pretty rough, but we survived and returned to the boat.

Monday - Fun Day at Sea and we just hung out and took it easy.

Tuesday - St. Thomas - We planned to snorkel and were not aware we would be riding a power boat to our site. I did not know a Power boat was a death trap where I sat on the back (supposedly the easiest part of the ride) and hung on while we jumped waves. I got a nice sunburn and did see some sea turtles, lots of fish and a sunken ship.

Wednesday - St. Maarten - This and the Grand Caymans are my favorite ports of all time. This was a smooth water taxi out to a tiki hut where we saw fish, a submarine, cannons, squid, and tons of stuff. There were also divers and helmet divers. I think I still had a little sun poisoning from the day before so I took a break on the floating dock and before I knew it - was puking my guts up! Embarrassing! But Tim had also brushed up against the dock and we thought it was just irritation from his sunburn. But, was probably some sea life. When we got back from the Mexican buffet that night, he was covered in welts. Because it was after hours 10 Benadryl tabs cost me $28, but I didn't want him to itch. The next morning the welts were gone, but he was completely pink!

So, since it was a Fun day at sea, we stayed in. By dinner time, we decided to go to the Medical center (the price of another excursion!) and got some prednazone, claritin, and caladryl. It cleared up nicely. We had a huge movie screen on the pool deck so that night we saw Avatar.

Last day- won some money back from the casino, played some trivia, Tim played Minute to Win it, and had a great time.

It was hard to drive home and start life back again, but what a nice vacation before the new chapter in our life begins!

2009

It's my next to last day at the CDC (not center for disease control, although sometimes...) anyways I was playing Bejeweled Blitz and began thinking "What if you only thought about the 'bad' things that happened to you this year?" So I decided to lay them out then challenge them with the greatness:

Meh or Bad
1. I have PCOS (insulin resistance)
2. Another year w/o a baby
3. MeMe went to assisted living
4. Miss my family
5. Miss my friends
6. Mingus ran away
7. Had a rough job most days
8. Didn't lose much weight this year
9. Took a large paycut
10. Moved from my house (unsold) to tiny apt. (1 bathroom and small closet)


Great things:
1. Moved to NC (weather is great!)
2. Made lots of friends
3. Saw Dr. Peacock who diagnosed PCOS and has a plan
4. Lost a little weight
5. Mingus came home and goes to puppy school
6. Had a job
7. Got a new job(s)
8. Was able to visit home a lot
9. Live near Myrtle Beach - got to go once!
10. Learned to live on less (space and money)
11. I'm no longer responsible for carrying the insurance!
12. Tim is happy @ work
13. Time to read - (more than fiction)
14. VBS!
15. Variety
16. Living in a big city
17. Time to bake!
18. QT with Tim (no grad school)
19. Visits from Fam and Friends
20. Charlotte One
21. SNOW!!!
22. Mountain trip!
23. Working with College students (youth and children)
24. Paid off some debt
25. Sending Care packages
26. Adam will be near us while at lutherie school
27. So many close states
28. Dog parks - Reedy Creek
29. Adventure

My list really could go on. I know people get down in the winter, so maybe they should make lists. I'm a list maker, from to-do lists to pro/con lists. They always make me feel better. The great things that have happened to you this year far out weigh the negative. The most simply being you lived another year. God has provided for you for another year. I know a lot of people lost jobs and things got tight, but you made it there was a new tomorrow and maybe you got to volunteer somewhere, maybe you got to know others w/o jobs. Maybe you found something else. Look forward and don't dwell on that stuff that you can't change!

I'm still here at school (3 more days), counting down to quitting, and getting to TX. I'm ready to wrap all those presents I sent there and spend some good times with the fam. The Christmas musical was excellent and I miss seeing everyone already (not that I want to have marathon practices again, just want to get together). I'm excited about my brother coming back to NC with us after Christmas and starting a new job in January. I'm ready to go see Dr. Peacock on the 21st and have him tell me I'm doing better since we're walking Mingus regularly. I'm ready to get into a rhythm and be excited about what I'm doing. I guess that's it. What a great year 2009 was and 2010 can only get better (except for that whole turning 30 thing!)