Mommy and Me

Mommy and Me
Sharing life with you is fullfilling

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Affirmation of the World, or Restoration for your Soul?

I've been aching to come and write here for awhile, but it is December now, and well time flies, especially when you are having fun!
Quick update; Fia's Birthday is Thursday, we had a party for her last weekend. She was so cute in her princess dress, and her little friends came dressed as princesses too! We even met a few new friends... all boys of course because it seems most of the people we know have boys!
Caeden's birthday is coming up, we will have a party for him next weekend. His party theme will be Paleontology, and Patrick and I are putting together a kit for him to dig with like a real dinosaur bone digger! He's going to love it!
Don't know when the last time I wrote was but Moo moo turned two as well... gosh he is getting so big! But he must like being the baby cause he keeps coming back for more mama loving, even when it seems he's getting to an age when he doesn't need as much mama... of course, they all come back to mama even Caeden being almost 7 wants to sit on my lap during school work time!

I actually wanted to write about something completely unrelated to my family today. It seems to me that sin and condemnation are running rampant in our world, and I've got an idea why. Who has all the answers? I want to know.

I have realized that a lot of people seem particularly condemned lately. They are easily offended by people's different opinions and need to be affirmed in their own beliefs in order to feel good about themselves, but it doesn't make them feel good about themselves. Take breastfeeding in public for instance. Breastfeeding has come a long way, those who do it in public are confident in what they do, and do it with a sort of pride now-a-days. When I had my first baby almost 7 years ago I didn't feel like any kind of pioneer, my mother had breastfed all of her children, my Aunt's and Cousins had breastfed their children, it was normal, and not at all strange to me, but I met several people who felt it was 'weird' or 'unnatural'. (This I have to say, while off subject, was absolutely astounding to me, that breastfeeding could be seen as 'unnatural'.) Anyway, since there are certain people who are uncomfortable with breastfeeding in public there are laws about it in some states, most of which are about the ability for a woman TO breastfeed and not the opposite, but still women are fighting for it. Women on social media are swarming pages with pictures of their bare skinned breast, feeding their child.
I even recently read an article about Christian women who should breastfeed in public baring their breasts and not being a 'prude' by covering up. The article while very interesting and insightful on the plan of God to nurture us close to his bosom, forgot a whole book in the bible that mentions repeatedly the sexual nature of the breast as well.
There are also women all over the world who are bearing their breasts just to make a statement and saying it isn't shameful... I don't agree with this idea, but that isn't my point. They want everyone to see it as normal, they want everyone to feel as they feel. The article about breastfeeding urged more women to bare their breasts in church to make it normal, and less shameful. I don't believe that breastfeeding in public is bad, I don't believe that breastfeeding uncovered is bad, but I do believe there is a modest way to go about it and a completely immodest way to do it, and would urge all women who breastfeed not to hide the fact that they do it, but rather to be discreet as the naked breast is a distraction to many people, and your personal comfort levels should be taken into consideration as well, but you shouldn't attempt to change people's own comfort level so that the breast can be more normalized.
There are other arenas where things are becoming more normalized, homosexuality, cross dressing, legal use of marijuana, the ability to buy alcohol in the grocery store (if you didn't know, it isn't legal to sell it in grocery stores in Oklahoma), so many things, little things too, celebrate your kids in mediocrity, don't let them learn about failure, instead they are all winners. Don't have too many kids, or the first few won't feel like they are important, or have enough stuff, or they will have to share their bedroom. My parents had 6 kids and somehow managed to buy into the idea that we each needed our own bedroom... I look back and think the times I had my own room were the loneliest, I really enjoyed sharing my bedroom. I even went as far as convincing my parents that we should have two exchange students because I wanted one in my room and it wasn't the biggest room in the house, my sister would have been the one to share rooms if we only hosted one.
Those who do something that is not a social norm press and strive and fight for it to become 'normal'... why? Christians and non-Christians alike are doing it, but more so those who are doing things that are deemed 'shameful' by older generations than those who follow the social norm.
I've been reading Romans this morning and I think I've come across the answer.

Romans 1:28-32 "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

Who are any of us? Any person on this planet would fit into one of these categories, don't think you are bad? Do you whisper about people behind their backs? Are you Proud? Were you disobedient to your parents? Do you ever envy other people? Then this describes you, don't eliminate yourself here... you fit, you are a sinner. And the bible says that if you do these things you deserve death. It also says that people who do these things will approve of others doing them. It used to be that people who drank alcohol would give minors a drink and laugh, I remember it, I remember how they tried to con young people into thinking it was cool to get drunk, they knew it wasn't, but the kids they let do it didn't have the wisdom yet to know what it was actually going to do to them... but that isn't all that is happening now.
Now even if a person is confident in their own gender they feel that it isn't right to force gender on a person, so they tell their toddler that they can be a boy or a girl, it doesn't matter. WHAT is wrong with people! I'm sorry but you are given a gender, from God.. he is the only one who can control it. This issue goes far below your skin, it goes to hormones, it goes to DNA, it goes to chromosomes. And while they are finding ways to change so many body parts they have no way of changing chromosomes that I am aware of. If they do I'd hope they were using it to cure disease not change genders.
Making what is wrong normal seems to be the only way to feel good about doing wrong... UNLESS there is a better way! No one wants what the bible predicts for those who are sinners, death is awful... Life however is beautiful. But are you really living your life if everything you do is for yourself? I'd argue that the answer is no.
God gave a perfect example of what we can do to really live... die. Not to save our own life, but to give life to others. I don't mean a death of a physical sense but rather a death of a spiritual sense... we as the bible says, die to ourselves. That means that we stop saying 'yes' to ourselves, and start saying 'yes' to helping others, start saying 'yes' to serving others, not forgiving their sins and letting them continue on in them. We have no power to forgive sins, only God does, and he says 'go and sin no more', which means that we as Christians might want to re-think some of our positions on things. Stop condemning, stop ignoring, but start doing something more like Christ. Eat with the 'sinners' like Christ did, he gave them an example to follow, and he told them not to continue in their sin anymore.
Stand up Christians, not for the right for a man to dress as a woman, or use a public restroom of his choice. Not for baring your naked breasts while breastfeeding (I'm not saying in any way that breastfeeding in public should be shunned I just don't think it is necessary to wage war on the subject), but stand up to say what sin is, and how we have a savior who has already overcome it for us, stand up and walk tall, don't hide your beliefs, don't be scared, be bold, and die to yourself, daily, the way Jesus asked us to, so that your brother, sister, friend, Aunt, Mother, Uncle, Cousin, Father, person you never met but see at work all the time, can know who Jesus really was, a bold man who knew what God designed him to be, and who knew and identified sin as sin, but also forgave sin by dying, literally dying on a cross to forgive it all. Stand up and help people out of sin, don't help them stay in it and normalize it for your children and their children, stand up and be bold.
The insecurity of those who want to normalize sin comes from Satan, and he wants you to be a part of it... Bullies bully because they hate themselves, not because they hate others. People who don't know how to love themselves (the way Jesus loved us) cause all sorts of problems, we really need to get our hands on some people and show them corrective love...
So many of my Christian friends on facebook will say "I don't do those things, but God says not to judge, so I can't say if they are wrong for doing them".... BULL You are not judging, God judged, he did it already! The judgement is done... if the bible says it is sin, it is sin! How we deal with it is a different story, but we absolutely can not stand for it to be 'normal'.

As I was growing up I would read through the bible and try my best to be a 'good girl' accepting God's grace where I screwed up, and then at school my friends would pick on me and say I was 'better then' them... I didn't understand what I was supposed to do with that, cut myself down and point out my own sin, or point to Jesus as the reason they saw me that way, and would usually end up doing both in some fashion. Now as an adult I feel somewhat smarter in this area, it is NEVER about me... so I feel like I shouldn't make it about me, but then sometimes it is about the example God has given through me. When difficult things happen, where does my trust fall? Who is watching when I lean on God to get me through a difficult time in my life? Where do I turn, what do I say, what are people deciding about Jesus when they see me?
The bible says we are made perfect through Jesus... I think I understand this more now than ever. It isn't that I don't sin, or that I am not capable of sin. It isn't that the sin I do commit is ok because I'm perfect in Christ. It is that my desire to sin has been taken away. Yes I fail, I'm not Jesus, Yes I stumble over things that maybe I shouldn't, but in the end, every day I am forgiven, everyday I desire Jesus is one day less I desire sin. I want that for everyone. Not just for my family, but for the people who are looking for the restoration of their souls, for affirmation that someone loves them, that he would do anything for them. That he accepts them just as they are, but because he does that they want to be more like him, and they stop their bad habits and stop seeking affirmation, and normalization of things that are inappropriate and/or wrong, or sinful and begin seeking God.
I want that everyone should have Jesus rather than the approval of the world for the things they do, and the way they feel.