When I say "I am a Christian"

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not shouting, "I've been saved!"
I'm whispering, "I get lost! That's why I chose this way"

When I say, "I am a Christian," I don't speak with human pride
I'm confessing that I stumble — needing God to be my guide

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not trying to be strong
I'm professing that I'm weak and pray for strength to carry on

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not bragging of success
I'm admitting that I've failed and cannot ever pay the debt

When I say, "I am a Christian," I don't think I know it all
I submit to my confusion asking humbly to be taught

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not claiming to be perfect
My flaws are far too visible but God believes I'm worth it

When I say, "I am a Christian," I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartache which is why I seek His name

When I say, "I am a Christian," I do not wish to judge
I have no authority — I only know I'm loved

By Carol Wimmer. :)

Isn't that just beautiful? I feel that that is what a Christian should strive for. I recommend you guys go ahead and read the history of that poem on her website.

G-d bless,
sc

The Post

My Goodness it's been a long time since my last blog! I'd love to talk about what happened since...*goes to check* August 8, 2006!...but then I saw that I promised a post, which I even drafted:

She replied to my PM sooner than I thought...so here is the post that got me going today (names and sn's removed):

Hi [user], I'm not sure if I can help, but I believe I know what your friend is going through because I went through quite the same thing.

For some reason, unknown to me, I am somewhat of a leader at my school (I promise I’m not trying to sound conceited). I’ve always felt that I had to be a perfect Christian so that others around me would believe that Christianity was indeed the true religion, and that nothing on the negative end of the spectrum ever happened to a Christian. But for years I hated feeling like I was living a lie – telling people about Christ when there was so much distance between my head and my heart over the same issue. I believed that doubting God made me a terrible person.

Honestly, I have heard every theological, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and Biblical reason for why He loves me and you'd think I'd get the picture. But sadly it's not always about what's logical - we want to be able to feel the truth and know that He's with us. You said your friend was baptised 2 years ago. Baptism is usually a time when you go through a 'spiritual high'. You feel invincible and you know with every fibre of your being that God is real. But that high doesn't last forever and I'm sure you've heard people talk about the high and low points that are involved in Christianity.

Last year I was actually here on CF when somebody asked some questions about 'holes' they had found in Christianity. I was at that low point where I couldn't feel God. When I realised that I couldn't answer those questions I searched my Bible and asked pastors, ministers and youth leaders the same questions but none could answer me properly. It was then that I went through a bit of a crisis of faith where I decided that Christianity was, in fact, a giant lie. For me, this was a double hit – all I’ve ever known is how to be a Christian, and so in the same instant I lost my faith and my identity. Seriously, I was a mess. I couldn't talk to anyone at school about it for the reason that I was a 'leader'. When the salvation of your friends rests on your shoulders, you're none too keen to talk to them about the doubts in your mind. I hate the unspoken rule that leaders have to be perfect - it can often make life very difficult. Even at the moment at school I am slowly but surely introducing the idea that leaders are human too - they have fears and they have doubts.

I am a little worried that you say you want him to stay with his faith because he greatly influenced others. It doesn't matter how influential your friend is - he's confused about what he's meant to believe. He doesn't want people to follow his example as a Christian - he just needs friends who are willing to talk to him and accept him as he is.

The best thing you can do is continue to be there for him. Don't make him feel guilty about having doubts - doubt, in essence, is our faith searching for for answers and isn't a terrible thing. You don't need to be the 'all-knowing Christian' for him, just his friend.

Pray for him, hang out with him and talk to him. Let God do the rest.

I'lb praying for you and your friend [user].

Shalom,
[user]

This part struck me the most, even today (a couple months after that post was written):

Even at the moment at school I am slowly but surely introducing the idea that leaders are human too - they have fears and they have doubts.

How true is that! You might consider me as a "silent" leader in my school, slowly but steadily learning just what it means to lead even when you are introverted. The thing is, it's hard...but saying that it's hard does not get me anywhere, as I learned over the past couple months I've been away from my blog. Hard is just another word for challenging. Leaders are human too, they are not perfect, neither morally, spiritually, economically, socially, politically, or any other 'ly' you can think of. Think about that for moment, how different are leaders from regular people, besides them having a little more influence. In a way, all of us are leaders. A fact I learned a while ago: a typical introvert effects 2000 people over his or her lifetime. Now that is a lot of people!

That will be it for now, I think the quote above speaks for itself pretty much. It's just food for thought. :)

May you all be forever blessed in Him,
sc
Ps. Yes, the quote/post is posted here by permission from the author.

Open the Eyes of My Heart

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You

To see You high and lifted up
Shinin' in the light of Your glory
Pour out Your power and love
As we sing holy, holy, holy

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You

To see You high and lifted up
Shinin' in the light of Your glory
Pour out Your power and love
As we sing holy, holy, holy

(Repeat two more times)

Holy, holy, holy
We cry holy, holy, holy
You are holy, holy, holy
I want to see you

Holy, holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy
You are holy, holy, holy
I want to see you

Holy, holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy,
I want to see you

This was Open The Eyes of My Heart by Paul Baloche. Amazing lyrics, my prayer everynight and day.

Just thought I'd post this before the next post.

~the sc.

Struggles, God, and some other stuff

I just realised what I was doing all this time of not praying and giving into temptation with little, if any, struggle and even trying to get out of church by making up excuses for myself like "it's boring, I don't belong there" and so on. I came upon the reality of my actions by listening one day to MyFavoriteStation.net. Actually, I just found that website when I was looking for piano music I can play because, yes folks, Im learning to play the piano and the music in the lesson plan just doesn't cut it with me or my teacher. But on that station there was this "commercial", in quotations as there are no commercials on that station but the ones about themselves and encouraging you, saying something like "At one point or another we all try to run away from God". And that was my realisation point. I was running away from God! It then went on stating that, well, there is no place we can go where He isn't there. Can we flee to the stars? Can we flee so far from the sun that it looks like a flashlight shining from the end of the street? They left the answer to you, and my answer was "uhh....". So right now that's what I'm going to talk about. My mistakes. I may add a couple "testimonies", as Americans like to call them, from the NYC trip in my ranting if that is what some of you want to read instead, but you will have to dig and dig hard. No matter how hard I try I just can't organize my posts into "Well Monday we went tothe UN headcourters to pray" and "On Tuesday...". Soon I lose interest in it. So I will post in my own, un-unique, selfish style. I will talk about whatever comes to mind and whatever I feel like talking about. So deal with it! :P

But running away from God. It sounds so silly to us all I suppose, even the non-Christians, or maybe even Atheists! But yet we all want to do just that. Over the weeks I noticed a new feeling in my adolescent and growing body, a feeling that I just wanted to shut out: I felt like giving God a big punch in the nose and running away to somewhere where He wont find me! That's so thilly sc, tho thilly though. But still, I wanted to punch Him and then run. That's all I wanted. And, actually, it's not as hard as it sounds. I started using the excuse "I'm too tired to kneel and pray" and only prayed when I hit a rock bottom. My struggles with pornography came back and I started looking actively (with some reserve. I was still trying to pull myself back to the praying person I used to be a year or so ago) for a way around the filter, which I found but will not tell ya'll. After a while pornography became less and less a threat and more and more an open invitation to let go of the stress and thinking and indulge into beautiful people of all kinds. Then I noticed something terrifying: I was starting to lose my sense of guilt. I was starting to have two or more personalities as well. A good Christian at church, a good son at home, a peace keeper between my brothers upstairs. And yet, I still feel like I want to be that Christian again. I want to pray, I want to be with God, I want to...*LOVE*...God. Speaking of which, that was, is, and I suspect will be my problem in the future as well. I have absolutely no idea on how to love God, I mean I know what my Youth Pastor told me in his email: that to love Him is to love the least of His. And I love people with a passion, especially after NYC and the homeless woman teaching me things I forgot by now but will be in my subconscious memory forever. But still, I don't feel anything for God. Yes, yes, I know that believing in God is not some feeling that we are supposed to have but true faith that He will be with us. I know that God wants us to love each other as ourselves and love Him with all our being (paraphrase)…but…have you ever noticed how for everything there is some excuse? Usually to the equivalent of “but it’s too hard”, but it’s always an excuse. Anyway, look at this paragraphy as a crying out to you to tell me how love God. I mean, how do I love an infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniloving being who came down to this limited earth and gave His son into our hands? It shouldn't be -that- hard.
Well, that's all I could rant right now. So onwards to NYC and stories! We were visiting the homeless next to the only Kmart in Manhatten, and I was praying and singing to myself praises for God all the way on the trip there via the subway, when we (we meaning me, Cole the Youth Pastor, and a girl whose name I can't remember right now but we'll call her Kate) found our first victims. They were 3 homeless guys who told us that they are Christians and that yes, they would like the food, iced tea, and hygiene things in a bag. It seemed like there was a leader among them, who was the loudest of all and who liked to talk to us a lot. He told us how if they really wanted they could mug us, steal our money, steal our clothes, and leave us for the dead. But they won't; because that would be wrong. He told us how we wouldn't last a day on the streets. I asked him if we can pray for them, which he said yes, and we prayed that God would guide them in all they do and that they would be lifted up to Him. But that was only the beginning. We went after the group, as we were walking to them a lady overheard me tell the three homeless people that "May God bless you!", and this lady (who was not homeless) muttered "And God bless you too!". We started talking, she was speed walking real fast, but by the time we got to the God part us 3 arrived by the rest of our group and Kate had to yank me aside so I wont miss them. But that was still only the beginning! I went to our group and asked how it was going, so we started talking a little. Cole came back to us after about 5 minutes to tell us that there was one lady who was already talked to but was not given food, iced tea, or hygiene stuff. Erin and I decided to go over there and give her the items. I'm telling all of you, do NOT stereotype!:

1. First of all, New Yorkers are not mean and are not that quick walking as you might think. They are the nicest, most open people to God that I have ever seen. There are some bad apples, but the majority are so helpful! And they love tourists.
2. Second of all, the homeless is NOT stupid. And they are not in as much need spiritually as the government and organizations might have you think.

The lady, Passa was her name, was an African-American, single, homeless lady with a little baggage of clothes. She looks like the stereotypical poor. But then she opens her mouth and you can literally feel the Holy Spirit moving around and in her! Her Bible is underlined and highlighted, just like a Pastors, but with one key difference: there was not one word left unhighlighted or un-underlined. Everysingle word was covered. The Bible was falling apart, she had to ducktape it a couple times, for which Passa even apologized. She told us about how she is waiting for the second coming, how everything we do we have to do for the Lord, expressing our love to Him. That was the key thing: everything we do we must do to glorify Him, that is how we express our love for Him. You know, now that I think about it, loving God might be hard, but I can express my earnest desire to love Him. If I love the "least of these", I am, theoratically, loving Christ. Think about that for a second. ;) I know this sounds very rushed now, but I just want to thank Passa: Passa, I thank you for your teachings and for letting God work through you. You have no idea how much you taught me. Even if I forgot your exact words, I do remember one thing: that God can and will work through everyone, that the homeless is not synonymous with useless even though both have "less" in them. So thank you Passa.

For my readers, I apologize for the confusing post. Hopefully it could serve someone something, maybe a little hope that if this confused teenage boy can get through this in a half an hour then so could I. If the certain someone will allow me, I will post a post of hers that just got me going today, and not just that post but I will post my thoughts on that. Thoughts meaning how it gave me hope. But thats for another post, not this one.

As always, may God bless you in all you do and may He guide you closer to Him,
sc

New York City

Just because of the lengthiness of the trip (a mere one week...but tons of stuff happened!) I decided to write one day at a time. Maybe two. :)

Anyway, to start things off, I woke up at 1:15am on a Saturday morning, the 22nd of July. Took a shower, quickly ate a little oatmeal with no toppings or flavor, and then went to the door to open it for Dan, who will take us to the train station. Well, I guess you could say that that is where my "bad luck" started happening, with me getting the wrong key to open the door. Things just started going downhill from then on, though I think it was a part of God's plan to humble myself which is all very good and fine, thats what I've been praying for after all. Just, you know, its kind of like: "Why now Lord, cant it wait until Im actually in NYC and working?" On the way to the station, Dan decided to take a shortcut (no, we didn't get lost), and told us to start counting deer. Well, we found a total of 2o some deers on that backroad! It was amazing as one of them was even pregnant! As we reached the station, another bad news, Amtrack decided to delay the train for a whole 45 minutes, the train will now leave at 4:45am instead of the planned 4:00am. We are to be there 1 hour before departure. Actually, it wasn't that bad, the Lord used the time to prepare me with some fellowship with the fellow teens there. And you must understand, I am the introverted, not-talking and quiet type so this was kind of a little push for me. We started playing Apples to Apples which is a cool game but not my type, it's a little boring imho. The way you play is, someone from the group deals everyone 6 cards, and then picks one from a pile that contains words from "Suspicious" to "Dark". Everyone will pick a card from their own pile that they feel best describes the word and definition, the goal is to get the most "Word Cards" at the end of the game. It can be funny at times, just by everyone's choice of cards, but, to me, a little boring. Im not the word type. :P After an hour of that, we piled on the train and luck would have it that I would be at the very back with an old lady. It was alright, I didn't know that many people from my group anyway, and she was very nice. The train ride was delayed by seven hours all together, however, so instead of a 12 hour ride trip it became a 19 hour trip. Fun, fun, fun! The others told me that it was an experience that brought them closer, and many wanted me to move up there to them, but I refused. The little stubborn and shy buggard that I am. It was fun though, the train ride was. A little long, but alright. The lady told me how she never flies anymore because the last airplane she flew on got sucked into a tornado but managed to get out somehow. People were screaming and praying, and a soldier held her broken chair up all throughout the ride. She'd rather deal with Amtrak.

There's one thing that I learned from the trainride though, now that I look back and include my thoughts from the rest of the week as well. It is that God can use anything, anything at all, for His purpose. He used a 19 hour trip and brought the community closer, and made me think of all the things I am losing by staying in my comfort zone. He taught me that talking and being embarrassed is a lot, lot better than staying back and just looking on. That trainride was just the start of our adventure for the week, and what a ride it will be!


May God bless and guide you in His love forever and ever,
sc

The Weeks

You know, if it wasn't for the chemicals released in my body, I wouldn't be so cheerful. First of all, I would like to apologize: I would like to apologize for not upgrading this blog since July 4th (if you think about it...boy that's a long time!) and for not being thoroughly honest. So, here it goes...my confession, my everything. I'm a sinner. I fall short of the perfection my Heavenly Father deserves, in fact, I fell just 2 days ago. But let's not get that personal.

Now that, that's out of the way, what did I do since the 4th? Actually, a ton of stuff have been happening. I've been struggling to get my prayer life back on track again, and I've started up exersize. And this time it's business. There's this really cool website that lets you have a free profile complete with free exersize schedule. It personalizes the exercises to your body and you get to choose which days you want to exercise. The only thing is, it's for 18 and up but they "may change that in the near future" to 13 and up. You may choose to train with your team, or alone, for a sport like football, soccer, martial arts, etc. It's very cool. I chose the "Get Lean" option, so my exercise week consists of:

Monday: Nothing (I have Karate)
Tuesday: _______
Wednesday: Nothing (Karate)
Thursday: ______
Friday: Nothing (Rest day. I'm also 'following' the "Abs Diet" which is basically just telling you how to eat. It works, and all you need is their book. If that. It tells you how to eat right, how much to exersize, etc. and you may have 1 meal a week where you can eat anything (Pizza!) in moderation. It also recommends a day or two between each exersize day, so your muscles can rest and build up. It works, I tried it for a couple months and its amazing. Of course, then I gave in to temptation (Pizza everyweek and chips!) and let myself slack from December until now, and Im back where I started.)
Saturday: Nothing (I have Karate)
Sunday: ________

All the _________ spots are filled with either an exercise or cardio day. My plan goes like so:
Workout, workout, cardio, cardio, cardio, cardio, workout, workout, cardio, cardio, cardio, cardio, workout, workout, etc. When you create your plan...well, just try it out. I would like to talk about other things now. :)

If you don't mind, we will go backwards. This workout thing started just last week, so we'll stay with last week. And so we get to the retreat, the NYC missions trip retreat. Our Youth Group is going to NYC (New York City; for the newcomers) and we will be visiting AID's patients, the homeless, and basically everyone we can.
Dear L-rd, I pray that this trip be a permament lifechanging experience for all of us, that all of us may be put out of our comfort zone. Amen.
The retreat, it was amazing. On the first day we were told to fill out a sheet (at night. Up to that point we were boating) and pray about the questions on the verses. We then gathered and sang praises to our G-d and King, discussed the questions, and prayed. At about 12am we went inside and were up until 2am (I was dead tired, but man enough to stay up ). What did we do? Well, I just went and filled out sheets, everyone had their name written on a piece of paper on which we were to write an encouraging comment on. Frankly, I was quite suprised on comments made to me as I am the quiet one in the group and speak only when answering a question. Anyway, after I got bored with that I joined the group, well just looked and then was asked to join, in a game of...where you sit down in a circle and the person next to you says a word, then you say a word, and eventually you will have a story. Just a couple minutes of it though, most of us got bored, so we formed a massage circle. Now that was an experience, a massage. It was around 1am at that time. When that was over, I went on the couch (my sleeping place) and watched some people play "Apples to Apples" if I recall correctly. And we slept. Whoops, hold on! That night (right after discussing the questions) was the night when our Pastor/Youth Leader asked us to was one other person's feet until everyone is washed and has washed. Well, I was terrified. Being the quiet one, who would I wash? I had a hunch on who would wash me, the Youth Leader, but who would I wash? I was right in the end, he washed my feet, and I was terrified. Then he gave me a hug, please not hugs are not something to be given around freely in our family, they are reserved for Grandma and Grandpa, sometimes Dad. I was stunned, literally. I just sat there, with my feet out of the water, my heart beating like it was ready to flee. About 15 minutes passed before I got up to wash his feet as well, and hug him, and tell him "thanks", and him telling me he loved me (not kiss, but genuine, friend love. "I love you man" was what he said, after he washed my feet and after I washed his). Seriously, that was the only time I've been hugged by someone outside my family, except once in school by a girl who wanted to hug me for Valentines day...I didn't really hug back, it was ackward, after being raised with kisses but not hugs, it was another experience.
The next day was pretty normal, we discussed the questions, went boating, though I stayed behind to finish those comments...and because the boats were filled, and then prayed and left. This week, starting Monday through Friday, I am volunteering over at VBS, Vacation Bible School, which is pretty amazing. I've started to wonder what people are thinking, what people's life story are. Remember, every person is truly unique, just think about that. All 6 billion of us unique. And I saw that with the 230ish kids coming to VBS this week, WOW! They get real excited over the smallest of things, especially the pre-k and the kingergarteners. Any game we have is just amazing to them! Their tiny little faces show emotions full of excitement, happiness, enjoyment, and they just love the songs and clapping to the rock and roll one. Speaking of VBS, I've been invited by someone to go to AppleBees, good restaurant, but I couldn't go, mother wanted me home. Oh well, theres always next time, second time I've been invited and I couldn't go, but may G-d's will be done forever and ever. I've noticed I've been thinking of G-d more, or at least seeing Him in everyone, especially the Christians around me, and sometimes I've been noticing the lack of G-d, and the silent but real suffering of some people. Can you imagine your neighbor, that cheerful lady who always bakes cookies for church, is lonely? She goes to church, but she lost G-d, she doesn't know. It's very confusing, and I'm still thinking, and please, anyone, pray that G-d wll show me His will for me.


And that was, more or less, the weeks since the fourth. I've found out I can be more active and still keep my personality, that I can be loving, and that I've been thinking on the right track: what people need are listeners, not just advice givers, but listeners who are willing to get into the muck of the problem. Willing to get muddy in the mess, willing to get wet amid the tears, and willing to lose their own life for Christ, through Whom they can help the other. An advice my father gave me: You are an emotional kid, and there's nothing wrong with that and it might be even better as you can learn to feel other people, but just learn to tone things down. Still working on that. Another advice: Make yourself stronger and then help the others. How can you help if you have no strength? (He said all that in Hungarian, of course). But that is it for now, no pictures but I will post more and will update the music of the day. Which reminds me! I put all my pictures and music (20 GB) on my external hardrive (300 GB max) which now refuses to let the computer know that its plugged in. Will take it to the computer guy.

May G-d bless you in your wonderful journey with Him, and I hope you like the new outlook of the blog,
The Sc

Devotional

Many things happened over the week, which I will talk about later, but right now I have a retreat to go to. Sooo...the following devotional was written by me, as a requirement for the missions trip to New York City.

Prayer

Have you ever really thought about prayer? I mean, really thought about it. How do you pray, or do you even do so? Some think of prayer as repetitiously asking for something from God, for us. After all, didn’t Jesus say that all things we ask for in prayer we will receive in Matthew 21:22? Others believe that the “Lord’s prayer” is the way to go, say it on your knees, by the bed, just before you go to sleep and your covered. Just like insurance. But there’s one tiny, insi-winsy little fact that…just didn’t make it into public knowledge. And that’s what we will look at right now, verse by verse, Matthew 6:9-13 (using the New American Standard Bible, and various commentaries by various people).

Before we look at the verses, let me set up the context: Jesus just finished being tempted by the devil for forty days and forty nights in the desert. He was “going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people” (Matt 4:23). A large crowd followed him from all over surrounding cities, so He was forced to go on top of a little meadow in the mountains. This is where He gave his famous Beatitudes and his not so famous “therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” command. His speech eventually turned towards prayer, rebuking the way prayer was thought of at the time, a cleansing process and “mindless repetitions.” After the rebukal, he went ahead and showed us what we now call the “Lord’s prayer”.

Mat 6:9 "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

Notice how He basically said “pray this way”, and then follows through with an example. “Our Father” shows a personal relationship, an acknowledgement of our love and His love flowing between Him and us. So then, prayer is more than a request it seems, it’s also a reminder that God is more than a genie in a box, He is a Father. Our guider, counselor, who happens to be in heaven, in paradise, but the relationship is still there. “Hallowed be Your name”, a sincere wish. Consider our Father being our Creator, the Creator who sent His Son into the created to save the created from slavery. Why shouldn’t His name be Holy?
Mat 6:10 'Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
The word “kingdom” here means “reign” (Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible), so it’s another petition: that our Holy Father may reign here on earth over all. That His laws may be obeyed, that His gospel may be spread throughout the lands to the ends of the earth, that all would be filled with His glory. “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” which is to obey His law and be holy. May His law be obeyed and loved here on earth, just like it is in heaven.
Mat 6:11 'Give us this day our daily bread.
Notice how there is no mention of a mansion, a chariot, and that there may be no taxes. Only bread, the basic necessity to live. No mention of comfort and no tears (for Christ has come not to bring peace but division (Luke 12:51)), just some bread to have the energy to fulfill that basic wish to obey His law. “Give us” may certainly symbolize our dependence on Him for life, and the “us” instead of the “me” may be referring to the attitude and love we are to have towards each other, feeling each other’s pain and loving each other as Jesus Himself loved (and loves) us.
Mat 6:12 'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
The definition of debt (from dictionary.com):

1. Something owed, such as money, goods, or services.
1. An obligation or liability to pay or render something to someone else.
2. The condition of owing: a young family always in debt.
2. An offense requiring forgiveness or reparation; a trespass.

Debt implies something that we have had and are bound to pay for according to contract (Barnes). Obviously, there can be no such thing between us and God, so it definition number two that we are looking at right now. (Also, Luke 11:4 uses the word “sins” in replacement of “debts” in the “Lord’s Prayer”). Jesus then goes on, does not stop at “forgive us our debts” but continues onwards to “as we also have forgiven our debtors”. How can you expect to be forgiven by the Creator of all things if you yourself can’t forgive fellow brothers? How will you be judged on Judgment Day when revenge and dark thoughts are stored in your mind? Remember, nothing is ever hidden from God, He can see you in the shower and He can see the state of your heart. Forgiveness, remember, also extends to not just actions but literal debt, the money kind. What will you do if someone is unable to pay you back, forgive?
Mat 6:13 'And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
God does not tempt (James 1:13) so the word “lead us” would mean “permit us”. A plea for freedom from evil, and the “lesseness” of suffering and temptations. If it is God’s will, it will be done.

There is one last line in the “Lord’s Prayer” which I’ve left out, it is the line “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” That last line is not included in most manuscripts of the New Testament, most likely it is an addition.

July 4th

I pray all of you had a mighty fine July 4th this morning, we sure did! The following pictures were taken by my mom, during the parade going in front of our house. Candy was all over the place! Please note, the dates are not real at the bottom right of the pictures, I did not find how to disable them yet on the camera, any help appreciated.

Take a look at this beauty, doesn't is just make you want to go out there and drive? I love electric cars, and this baby is the only one I've seen in all of my area, including the cities next to mine. But it's so adorable! Simple, yet elegant. Fun, yet serious. Certainly slow. Just one thing, what about the color? A bit obtrusive, I think. Take a look at the car though, once your inside you are inside. I suppose it's the same with people, some of us are bright, obtrusive lime green on the outside, but once you look inside you see the true self of us. Some of us are slow to move to G-d, some of us make the world gawk at out physique. But more than likely, all of us are different on the inside. He made us different. All 6 billion of us.
Spongebob Squarepants! What parade is without this character? Of course, all the kids loved him, even my brothers! As Spongebob was walking down the street, he was attacked by 3 small children with ages ranging from anywhere between 5 and 10. Adorable. Notice the clever disguise of spongebob, with the person's head on the inside of hat. Everything is still perfect though!
Ronald McDonald was a natural, just like in the commercials...minus the exercise and 'I'm loving it!' slogan. He even talked to the kids on the ground! One of them commented about Ronald's beautiful hair, to which Ronald responded with a prompt "Thanks dog!", rap style. Oh, and before I forget, our side of the street got tootsie rolls. The otherside? Ice Cream! What kind of service is that?!
You've got to remember our veterans, however, so the following two pictures are our men in service. We had tanks roll by, police cars, firefighters, and these guys. I truly respect them. And the beard...these guys have my utmost respect and love.

My mother took a picture of this adorable horse. She just had to, could not resist the urge. Afterall, what other horse has it's own, personal tag on the tail and braided hair? :)

My last image has to do with a car with one broom attached to the end of it. A cleaning urge I suppose.

One last time, Happy July Fourth America and may G-d bless you all!
sc

Alex and Matt Pearl

Yes, the second entry is just a couple minutes away. :P

This is a plea, by myself and the family, for you guys to please, please, please sign the guestbook of Alex and Matt Pearl! A copy and paste from "tayshodd" from over at CF:
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Hello everyone, I am a longtime lurker and not really much of a poster, but I have started this thread to ask a huge favor of everyone here.

My girlfriend has a very sick cousin who is only 9 years old. He has the disease known as Fanconi Anemia, a very rare blood disorder that causes bone marrow failure (making it impossible to produce a constant supply of healthy blood cells). Both him and his sister, Alex, were diagnosed with this condition almost 6 years ago. The problem can be cured with bone marrow transplant, and a surgery has been performed on Alex several years ago and she is now recoving nicely. Alex had found a perfect bone marrow match on the national bone marrow database. Matt, however, is not so lucky. After years and years of bone marrow drives all over St. Louis (his hometown) and in other places, the best match they have been able to find is a 30%. However, Matt's time is up. His organs are failing, and the doctors said it was nessessary to proceed with the surgery.

He is now waiting in a minniapolis hospital performing his pre-transplant routine (including intense doses of radiation and chemo therepy). In the downtime, his parrents have been tasked with keeping him occupied and his spirits high. They're idea was this: get 100,000 comments on their guestbook on their personal website, www.alexandmatt.com

Also, they want to see how much of a word of mouth chain they can form. For instance, I learned of the plan from my girlfriend, who learned from her mother and her mother from matt's parents. By me posting on this site and some (hopefully all) of yall visting his site and leaving a comment, that chain will hopefully grow. We have 2 weeks to get 100,000 comments, so tell everyone you know about this. It would only take a small amount of time to leave a message expressing whatever you would like. Mention also the chain of how you found out if possible, like they wished.

And also, more importantly, please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, he needs them now more than ever.

www.alexandmatt.com
click the "our guestbook" link on the right side

Thank you all so much and godbless
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G-d bless,
sc
Ps. In his CF blog, he said that we got 1000 signatures so far. We can get more! :)

My Library Adventure

Good morning everyone! This is the first, official post of sc's blog, a copy and paste from my older blog(s). :)

Share Jesus Without Fear
To share the five questions with someone, I went to the **** ****** ****** Library and made them into a kind of “5 question survey”. It was very interesting, to say the least. I admit, I was nervous, very nervous, to even ask the questions of a stranger, and to make it even worse I had 30 minutes or so. At the library, I typed up the questions, and then went ahead to search for someone, feeling a strong push towards one of the librarians, but I chickened out. I went to the Christian section, hoping that God would send whoever, there, but that didn’t work. So then I walked over to the study area, the place where people go for Wi-Fi internet access, reading newspapers, or studying for summer school. At first, I went straight to a table of 3 people (two teens), it looked like they were just chatting, but turned out it was a studying session. When I asked if they would fill out a five question survey for my Youth Group, the teacher said that they “have questions of our own to fill out” so that turned out to be a no. When I was looking for next victim, I noticed that there was this one guy, reading a newspaper, who was laughing to himself, he turned out to be an Atheist and I didn’t know what to do. So I moved over to an elderly lady sitting on the couch reading a book, a kind soul. She accepted the survey, so I proceeded to the first question. “Do you have any spiritual beliefs?” She did, though before telling me the answer she informed me that I “certainly ask questions”, implying it was straight forward. Oh well. “Do you think there is a heaven or hell?” Yes, she does, but “let’s not go there” meaning she did not want to discuss hell. She also said that she thinks she will go to heaven (question 3). Why? Because her “good outweighs the bad”. Frankly, I was expecting that answer from someone, so I asked her whether she knew Jesus’ two commandments. “Do you mean the 10 Commandments?” She was confused, I guess she didn’t know. But she did want to know, as when I asked her whether I can tell her, she said yes. So I told her “Love G-d with all your heart, mind, soul, and being” and she was nodding as I was saying that. She then asked for the second one “Love your neighbor as you love yourself, neighbor meaning enemy, friend, foe, ally”. She thought about it for a minute or two, and then replied that “It does wrap up the 10 Commandments, doesn’t it?” I’m just sorry I didn’t have the specific verses with me at the time, I would have loved to discuss this a bit more. “To you, who is Jesus?” She said that it is hard to explain, that Jesus is “G-d ethereal, G-d’s Son”. “If what you were believing is not true, would you want to know?” She said she didn’t really think that she is wrong, and that she knows that “there a lot of wacky ideas out there”. I really regret not sharing some Scripture with her though, I just pray that G-d show her Himself. And that was the end of the interview, with her, so I stood up, thanked her, shook hands, and “May G-d bless you, good afternoon ma’am”. She was amused, by that I guess. I then went around to another table, in the middle of the library, with the computers and internet access and asked a middle-aged woman. She didn’t want to participate in the survey. So I went to the next chair to a Gothic teenager girl, she answered them though she looked like she’d rather go back to her music. She has spiritual beliefs, she thinks there is a heaven and hell, if she died she believes she will go to heaven because she is good, she believes Jesus to be G-d’s Son, and when I asked her whether she wants to know the truth if her belief was wrong, she said “I want to know the truth”. I then moved across to a middle-aged man, he was just smiling as soon as he asked him permission to ask the questions. Yes, he has a spiritual belief, yes he believes there is a heaven and hell, he said that it’s not up to him where he will go when he dies, that Jesus is G-d’s Son. I didn’t ask him the last question, he seemed very for G-d. So that was my survey, it wasn’t as hard as I thought, and I only wish I had more time to share some Scripture with those people.

G-d bless,
sc