Patience

If someone had told me last December that I would weigh over 200 pounds in July I would have rolled my eyes and said something along the lines of "Yeah, right."

But here I am, 32 weeks pregnant, tipping 200 on the scale!

And so while I used the elliptical machine at the gym and felt my legs rub together I have to sigh and remind myself that this is just part of the season, part of this time. My body will realign itself after Delpling is here, and I need to be patient for the arrival of this child.

It needs me to gain this weight so that it can be healthy long term. I know this. And I am doing good things for my body in the mean time. Like exercising. Not running as long as I'd like to, as often as I'd like to, but I'm exercising. Getting my heart rate up and stretching out my body, prepping for this baby's arrival.

Pregnancy, as of now, has been one of God's ways of reminding me to slow down and savor. Though I want to weigh less so I can run four miles, I need to remember to savor and enjoy this baby wiggling in my womb, reminding me of God's crazy glory and creativity in making it!

Everything is beautiful in its time. 

Odd Jobs and what we've been up to!

My work schedule has changed over the past month, I went from babysitting full time to no time, and now I'm doing odd jobs for people at my church. These are small jobs, but they are steady and are accomodating my growing belly. :) Ben is getting full time work at his job at Family Christian Bookstore, and may possibly accept a promotion.

Right now, I am pet-sitting for two different families, while they are on vacation, and will be doing some housecleaning and plant watering in the next few weeks. Besides those things, I've been up to the normal stuff-- baking and washing dishes, cleaning up the house (not so much). I made kidney beans, brown rice, and my normal bread (with some brown rice in it) yesterday. I also decided I wanted to start knitting a baby sweater. :) Yay me!

I'm going to post some pics from my most recent escapades. Enjoy!

This is the space ship that Henry and I made. Lots of tape, cardboard, and toilet paper rolls. I'm pretty proud of myself (we just worked from a picture in a magazine (seen in bottom right).

This is how I stabilized my structure... making triangles (thank you 7th grade science class!)

Again, using triangles.

Henry with his fully decorated plane, using colored paper and glue to create the patterns that were in the picture of the magazine. It's a space ship from Star Wars.

Rosie, my companion for three times a day for the next week. :) We get along great.

This is NOT an animal I'm petsitting. This is the groundhog that still prevails on our landlord's garden, seen through it's hideout in the shed.

That would be my 31 week, 3 day belly. I could feel the baby growing today.

Ben and I went to the Creation Museum in Petersburg Kentucky. Here I am with a Veliocoraptor

We found a onesie for Delpling!

An alpaca at the petting zoo. It was quite hot while we were there. He is only napping, not sleeping.

Benjamen with out new pet in front of the Creation Museum!

This is Lucy the "missing link" according to evolutionists. In reality, she's just another handsome ape. Just look at the skull!

Yes, they admitted pregnant women to the Creation Museum too! I'm looking wide!

My buddy King David.

King David's shoes. . . I can tell that he's the son of Jesse. Jesse had those same shoes!!! (and still does) lol

The apostle Paul. "See with what big writing in my own hand!"

Hate, LGBTQ Rights, Christ, and Living the will of God

Attending EMU moved my opinions on homosexuality all over the field. I love my friends dearly, regardless of their sexuality, and would stand for their rights. When a gay acquaintance put on a senior theater show depicting the discrimination he experienced at his church after coming out, I remember seething with anger at this superficial judging of a person.

And now I recognize that this is justified, but not like the LGBTQ community may want to see it.

The issues portrayed in the theater show were helpful, painting a picture I hadn't seen, helping me see pain I hadn't seen. These things were good. It also brought to light the issue of how members of the body of Christ are supposed to address homosexuality. And it is not through discrimination.* I say this with a disclaimer. I do believe if a person is not following the word of God, and also the will of God, there is room for guidance. But guidance has love, and relationship. Discrimination has neither of these. Discrimination shows fear and dances on the line of hate. Hate is the product of fear.

If a person is attending a church and comes out as homosexual, instead of labeling, the fruit need to be examined. Is this person following Christ fully, do other members see the fruits of the Spirit in them? If the members do, and the person continues to serve God in all aspects of their life, truly seeking God's will in their life rather than their own will in their sexuality, then I feel there is no need to remove them from leadership positions or participation. What I think is the issue in churches is that people spend too much time worrying about 'a certain person who is homosexual' in leadership rather than being prayerful and careful about all of the other people put into leadership who are heterosexual, and have the capabilities of sinning and leading others to sin as any person.

It's hard to read the Bible, believe it as the word of God, AND follow it. While I was at EMU, I found myself deciding that certain passages were only culturally relevant* (and there are some that are just culturally relevant, but it is not reasonable justification to say that all of Paul's writings about women and men's relationships or homosexuality are simply cultural. Remember "Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever." This means that what He said through Paul in the 1st century is also relevant now, and should be followed as such).

I've committed my share of prideful sins with my relationship with Ben prior to being married. We didn't wait. We "couldn't find the reason" in the Bible, because it didn't state anywhere that sexual relations in a committed relationship was wrong. I knew it was in the back of my head, but that messed with my desires, and I didn't let the little voice of Wisdom speak most powerfully in my heart. Eventually, we recognized our sin and regretted our poor decisions and lack of repentance prior to marriage and after parents and friends came to us in Christ, reminding us we could always turn from it. So now, as you probably well know, we are expecting our first child in September. We will always have a humbling story to tell this child.

The point I make with these past two paragraphs is it's very easy to frame the Bible to meet our desires or our hopes, the easier way of doing things, our way of doing things. I feel that this is the way it is with homosexuality. First of all, the world that we live in is sinful, fallen because of Adam, so there is corruption in everything, including sexuality. I'm not saying that a person with homosexual tendencies is "more corrupted" than a heterosexual person: we are the same in corruption. Just as someone with homosexual tendencies has the capability to lust after, and have sex with someone of the same gender, so does a heterosexual person.

The path Christ has called us to live is separated from our sex-soaked society. It is a path of purity, where sex can be enjoyed and love made, within a marriage between a man and a woman. That's a hard statement for most people who are heterosexual. I can only imagine how depressing and harsh and discriminating that can seem to a person who is homosexual. Is life fair? No, we live in a fallen world. But is God just? YES! and you know what else? God promises not to let us be tempted for more than we can handle.(1 Corinthians 10:13).

So just as many heterosexual Christians can handle being chaste for their entire lives if they do not find their Christ-given human soul mate (and instead Christ fills that role for them), so can homosexual Christians.

This next idea (which has been displayed in action by this story http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/when-homosexuality-became-a-man) seems impossible, to all people who are homosexual and probably to most heterosexual people. But it's the idea that a homosexual man or woman falls so in love with Christ that they leave the life and love sucking lifestyle that they used to serve and seek unconditional love with Him. So much so they seek relationships like God and the Bible describes as holy. I found this story beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time, but you could see the fruit of God in them! Amen to that!

Relationships aren't just about the sexual aspect. Anyone who has been in a relationship or a marriage understands that, and I know that homosexual couples also understand that. But can a person who is homosexual find the unconditional love of Christ as the third cord braiding their relationship together? Can a couple seek first God's kingdom and His Word FIRST and still be in that relationship? You know what the Bible says, God says, and I feel the Holy Spirit speaking for me now? The answer to that is no. Why is the answer no? Because God is just. This world is sinful, corrupted, cultured to say "Do what YOU want, do what feels good."

But instead "Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2

My Take on Evolution

So I've been married to Ben for two months on July 5th, and during this amount of time, we haven't been that employed (some part time jobs), so we've spent a lot of time together (which has been absolutely wonderful. :)). One of Ben's hobbies is learning about Creationism, watching Ken Ham speak (answersingenesis.org), and watching debates between old earth and young earth creationists, and creationists and evolutionists. So naturally I've been watching them with him.

Now, for those of you who knew me at the beginning of my EMU college years (2009-2010), you might recall I was a self defined liberal. As I look back, I recall that there were many questions I had about Genesis, and Jonah, and all of the other crazy amazing things that God did in the Old and New Testament. I didn't have the answers, and nor did I have the time to pursue them. You know how I filled the gaps? I plugged in "Oh, we're not supposed to take the Bible literally." and "You know, I believe that God had the power to do that, but I'm not sure it happened." And I plugged in evolution. How did God create the world in just six literal 24 hour days? "Oh, a day can mean a thousand years according to God's word. I don't think day really means day in this context. I mean, I think that God could have done it, but in reality, that's not what I really think. I think that Darwin's theory of evolution definitely was how the world was created. Over a long period of time."

Little did I know about evolution. . . and this "theory". Darwin's theory exemplifies micro-evolution. There is so much variation within a species. Think of wolves to poodles (yes, that is a KenHam reference. Get over it). Lions can breed with tigers. Donkeys can breed with horses.

The fact is: Darwin's observational science points out natural selection, and micro-evolution to the T. These are clear. We see them all the time. But when it comes to macro evolution, (change from one species to another, the evidence stops. If the evidence existed, we would see transitional animals in the fossils, in the present! But presently, there are no transitional fossils.

And if we talk biochemistry, getting down to the nitty gritty of DNA, evolutionists can pull the "mutation" card. But the truth is, they can't find any mutations that have occurred that have added to the genomes, or have benefitted them. Mutations remove genetic material (which is what has been happening for thousands of years since the animals got off the ark. Thus why poodles exist (that, and artificial selection by humans. . . do you think those animals would survive in the wild?)

Dating methods: evolutionists will also argue that their radioactive decay and dating methods are sound, and that's evidence enough for an old earth. But of the dating methods, these are fallible, especially the ones that they use. . . How could a dinosaur bone be 20 million years old and still have connective tissue? (Look it up!) They also took the layers created by the lava layers (just laid and cooled) by Mt. Saint Helens and said that those layers, according to their technique, were millions of years old.

Could science be fallible? Who said humans had it right? Why did the question of God creating the earth even come up? Could it be because sin entered the world.

One of the biggest problems with the Old-Earth, but God still created it view is that it would mean that death, thorns, and cancer all existed before the fall of man. The literal view of the Bible states that these things came into play after humans sinned. If they came before sin, that would mean that God created them and said they were good. Does God think that death, suffering, and cancer are good? No! God is just! (see Ezekiel 18), but also think of how much he labored about having to kill the whole world with a flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible says that God is a loving God, slow to anger and rich in love. But if we take Genesis figuratively, then we take the entire Bible figuratively.

The Flood. So this is one of those highly debated things, and we never hear about it in a science classroom (more likely in a history classroom as a story). But instead of the billions of years plot, laying rock layers, plate tectonics, animals dying year after year, the various periods of dinosaur times, could it be that dinosaurs lived with humans? There is evidence of this! Cave drawings, stories passed down from generations. Where do you think dragons came into play? And could it be that those layers were caused by a global flood, burying animals and plants in silt and fossilizing them? That would be a much simpler way of putting them. But humans have to be complex. We have to be smarter than the previous generation.

Do you want to know why the word dinosaur isn't in the Bible? Because the word wasn't created until the 1800s (at the discovery of dinosaur bones). In the King James Bible, they use the word 'dragon', but modern translations change it to "jackal". Don't ask me why. The Bible states, in many locations, that there were flying and swimming serpents (at least in the King James, they do change them in translation for modern times (NIV, ESV).

I could go on and on, because I have been learning a lot, and honestly, I find it more sound than many other discussions. Have you ever watched a debate between an evolutionist and a creationist? There is a lot of information that is out there that isn't discussed much, (and there's also a lot of dissing from evolutionists and atheists, rather than sound debating). I think there is much to learn.

Another issue that has come up is that all this information, all this discussion... is it necessary for the kingdom of God? Some say no. And that's because they are not sound in their own beliefs in this area. Isn't God's Word stronger than any double edged sword? So shouldn't we let it be our sword to fight against the evil one? Why diss the Bible, limit God's sovereignty, and praise humans, and with that our secular world by saying evolution is true? If we don't believe a piece of the Bible, doesn't that give people the right to argumenatively rip it out of our hands? If we don't let God's word be Truth in our lives, then we might as well not even read the book, or follow it, because we don't let it be our guide in this way. We might use it for morality, but hey, someone might try to argue that away too.

I encourage you to do your own research. There is a vast amount of ambiguous research by evolutionists that is easily reachable through the internet, but if you need to find some information that counters that the start painting the picture of creationism as a possibility and reality, check out answersingenesis.org.

I once heard a person say, I'd rather be on the right side of wrong than the wrong side of wrong. Meaning, I would prefer to believe something that God did, rather than saying that He didn't do it, and I get to heaven and He did. I think this is true for this case. How serious are you abour your faith? How much of your life is focused around following God, and His word, seeking His kingdom, and how much of it is centered around doing the things you want to do, with the money that you earned, and with the people that you want to be friends with? Isn't that too comfortable?


So, my disclaimer for this entire post is that, if I want people to read it, I'm not going to get into references, or search for quotations. Most of this information has been learned from various videos and articles on the Answers in Genesis website (which, by the way, are written by people with PhDs in all of the different levels of science). I am also not a scientist. I am a learner, and these are tidbits of what I've been learning. If you seek to debate, do your research. 

I've heard it said that you need more faith to believe in evolution than in Jesus Christ. There's more evidence for Jesus than evolution? Hallelujah.