in the love of Christ

Disagreement Today, I am thinking about how much a simple difference in understanding can hurt a relationship.  There is this thing called "the Bible" and it has tons of words in it. These are words and messages inspired by God to teach us humans about Himself. It has a great sentimental and theological value to it for many people and I have seen people ready to fight over a difference of opinion over one word in it.  Recently, there has been this video going around on Facebook by a passionate young man who shares some of his thoughts by spoken word poetry about how he views God and the whole video starts out with "What if". He goes on to portray his feeling about religion in one video and sexuality in another and they are very interesting as well as encouraging views, even if you don't agree with all that he says. He is, by the way, a human who is determining some of his beliefs and sharing them as a human. this is similar to writing a song or poem which people...

This week, I took my car in to the shop to get a free oil change. For those of you who know me, I am all about coupons and this was a deal. While my car was back there, I asked them to take a look at my tires and rotate them since that was free, too. Well, after about 30 minutes, the friendly man came over to ask me to follow him so I can "Take a look" at something. Do those words scare anyone else? Let me say this before I go on. I have had my check engine light on for...more than a few months but I chalked that up to bad sensors. Also, my car has been so extremely loud when I drive it. As I drive on the interstate, I can hear a loud roar coming from outside my car that I thought was just part of the car getting old...it wasn't. My radio/CD player goes in and out each time I hit a bump or run over a twig. It is a little touchy. Needless to say, I have learned to ignore some things because I have chalked them up to old age for my dear boat of a car.  To move on, the man a...

I really don't even know where to start some days. Here I am, one more day at Toot's where I have worked for almost nearly a year and I realize that my time there is spent, and hopefully well. I am heading to a new job in a new place, doing something I have never one before. I will be a student nurse in an ER here. So, I am evaluating. I am evaluating how I did this last year as a waitress, a co-worker and a friend. What it comes down to is, how well did I give glory to God in my work? How well did I share the hope of Christ with those around? I would like to say I did better than I actually did but I am unsure. I am unsure of whether I did any good at all. I am unsure of whether my loose cannon, no self control moments caused more harm to the Kingdom of God than good. All I can see are these moments. The enemy is sitting with me pointing them out like the stars in the sky. "So many screw up moments, Hannah! It's embarrassing. You would have done better to never try wi...

Ever since I became a Christian, I have been doing the dance called "live like a Christian" and it isn't the easiest thing I have ever done. There are lots of things that go along with trying to live a righteousn life so that I can bring God glory through my existence. One of the commands of God is to guard my heart and there are quite a few reasons as to why we should do this as well as a few ways to do this. Today, I think I realized/affirmed for myself some of this. Here we go! Philippians 4:4-7"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again : rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. In doing what Philippians 4:4-7 commands, you will be guarding your heart with the peace of God Himself! And what does that...

This week I faced something I had been ignoring for a while: I need glasses. I have always had perfect vision! I remember being a kid and testing myself to see how far away I could read stuff and shouting out in the car to hear someone say, “Oh my goodness! You can actually read that far!” Out of pride, I had ignored the problem. I am not saying that I have all of sudden gone nearly blind but I am saying that there is a difference. That is actually how I described it to the optometrist who, after doing all the tests and measurements (puff of air in my eye? No thanks) handed me a piece of paper with some small writing on it. I had told him it was my long-distance more than my close up, so I did not get why I was looking at this little writing which I could read fine! As I was looking at it, he put my makeshift prescription on me. Let’s pause here and mention that I didn’t think it was really that bad. I mean, my eyesight was just uncomfortably different, not blurry or anything. I did no...

The truth: I think of blog themes non-stop. Literally every 20 minutes I think of a new thing I want to sit down and spill out over my keyboard to the few eyes that take a peek at this blog. More truth: I am sitting here in my snuggie realizing how often I give up on myself. It seems that, of all of the millions of blog topics I think of, I want to blog about the one that makes the least sense to me and is the most difficult thing for me to try to explain. It could be easy to explain. The enemy attacks me every moment he gets and tries to convince me that I am just not quite good enough and that I never will be. Simply put: he takes advantage of my moments of insecurity. That wasn’t so hard to explain, now was it? That wasn’t so difficult to figure out! Oh wait…there is so much more to it. The moments of insecurity. Yes, the enemy takes advantage of the vulnerability there and it makes it easy to give up on myself. But I cannot blame every down moment in my life and in my relationship ...

I am saved. I am a member of the Bride of Christ. There is no question. My commitment is eternal. So is His. We live in a place in waiting. We are the Bride waiting for her Bridegroom to come and make the eternal commitment final. We are the Bride waiting for the wedding of eternal weight. Have you ever heard a true member of the Bride of Christ say, “If Christ returns, the union will be complete”? I sure hope you haven’t because that is not how this whole Bride-Bridegroom Covenant works. Let me tell you, there is no if . There is only a when. Upon salvation the covenant is made between each individual and Christ for eternity. On the bigger scale, the covenant has already been made between the Church (aka the Bride of Christ) and Christ Himself (the Bridegroom). I am ranting but my point is this: there is no question of if there will be a wedding. There exists no doubt in the mind of Christ’s Bride that there will be a day of union. I can guarantee that there is no doubt ...