Blacksheep Speaks

Welcome back!

What do you have to do to become a Christian? Great question. The exact, simple answer is that you ask for salvation through Jesus the Son. Being a Christian has nothing to do with going to church on Sunday. Nothing. Christianity is a state of being, not an act you perform. If you become a Christian, and people tell you you MUST do this, must NOT do that, they are using Churchspeak. Salvation is a rebirth, and as a baby Christian and a child of God, you probably will want to learn what that means. But God deals with each of us in a way that is uniquely our own. If He leads you to a church, fine. But if you are not happy there, you might not want to stay. You might want to seek God’s teachings in a different church, or with Christian friends, or even on your own. God will lead you on the path of learning that is best suited to you.

OKAY, SO YOU ARE SAVED. NOW WHAT?

Churchspeak tells you that you become a new person in Christ at salvation, which is actually a Biblical statement. But Churchspeak then proceeds to give you detailed instructions about all the things that you must give up. Unfortunately, most people still have the same wants and likings after salvation that they had before, and giving up what you want to do, on your own, doesn’t change anything one bit. God will work with you on what needs changing. It’s not something you CAN do on your own. So, when does this “total change” come that you keep hearing about? Is it all Churchspeak? Or is it real, but something you can’t get ahold of, leaving you feeling like you are missing out, or that it is all a lie, or all spiritual in nature and not something to be found in this world? WHEN will God remake you? Your answer lies in a thing called “Spiritual Baptism”. Salvation comes when YOU are ready to ask God for it. but baptism of the spirit comes when God believes you are ready. As with any good parent, God is not going to hand this to you until you can handle it. You should seek it, of course. Ask Him about it, and learn about it. But be warned, no amount of teaching can prepare you for the reality. When the Bible says you become “new”, it means it. With the mind of Christ and the heart of Him as well, ALL of the conditioning of this world is stripped away. Things that SHOULD touch your heart will, in ways you never expected. And the joy that accompanies the transformation is almost beyond belief.

After you are spiritually baptised (and this has NOTHING to do with water baptism), you will no longer question God’s existance. Up to that point most people have a niggling in the back of their mind, however small, that questions the existance of God. However, at this point, not only will you KNOW, but there is every liklihood that you will eventually hear Him speak to you. Really. And in my case, that happens when I am being an idiot. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t happen EVERY time I am acting like an idiot, or there is a possibility that the talking would never cease

OKAY, NOW WHAT? AM I DONE?

You wish. There is always more to learn and more growing to do. The baptism is the beginning of understanding, not the final step. Choose you this day who you will serve, because there is a war going on that makes Iraq look like a pattycake parlour, and if you are going to make any kind of difference at all in it, you need to get moving. God will teach you, step by step, what you need to know, as you can handle the information. But never stop, NEVER stagnate. In this life you do not walk away from school after kindergarten thinking you know it all, and as a spiritual warrior, you must recognise that just as God’s wisdom is endless, He will keep you ever growing, ever learning. Do not be so enthusiastic about teaching others that you fail to see what they have to teach YOU. Out of the mouths of babes, you know, and that is true in all phases of reality.

There will be more coming on this topic over the next few days. There is a very dangerous “comfort zone” that Christians like to stay in, and we will be discussing that, and how it can shatter your faith, very shortly.

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In the midst of all the turmoil left by the tornado, life still goes on. My first grandchild, which I will be caring for while my daughter finishes college and who I will probably become WAY too attached to, will be making an appearance in about two months. I have been trying to get prepared for this, but things have CHANGED in the fourteen years since I was last pregnant. And changed ALOT. The cost of baby wipes alone is enough to send me into a panic, but that isn’t all. I went to check the prices on baby food a couple weeks ago, and almost didn’t find the stuff. What ever happened to those extremely handy and useful baby food JARS? All I can find now are square plastic containers, and most of the flavors don’t seem to exist anymore. Looks like I am going to be pulling out the blender alot, because I am NOT feeding this crap to my grandbaby. This is going to be very interesting….

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If you have been reading this blog much, you know that about two weeks ago the biggest tornado in Arkansas history erased a large chunk of my county. Within days, ads were running on the radios that FEMA and the Red Cross were here to help, and were eager to do so. Right. In our case, we lost everything in the van that got hurled through the air except my husband. Checkbook, a couple hundred dollars cash, a bunch of tools, and my husband’s glasses. Red Cross was “helping” replace lost glasses, so he went to their command center. After getting past the guy selling term life insurance to scared victims, he found out that yes, they will in fact replace glasses, but not one of the local eye doctors would do. So, unless you wanted to drive two counties over, you were out of luck. Thanks a lot, Red Cross.

Then my Mom, who owns the van my husband was driving, hears from her auto insurance company. And, get THIS… because the tornado was not an “accident”, they won’t pay. Thanks, State Farm. So she tried to contact FEMA, whose ads say they are helping replace dead autos. Except they won’t answer their phone. EVER. You have to call the toll free number, if you can find it, and get someone on the phone who has no clue what you are talking about. They refused to help my mother because she couldn’t provide cross street information. They do not seem to grasp that out in the country there ARE NO CROSS STREETS. Thanks, FEMA. Stay tuned for further idiocies as they occur.

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I am old enough to remember what “junk mail” means. I still get a lot of it. However, my children appear to have a problem grasping the meaning of the phrase. I have actually had arguments with them about this. Whenever some flier for the greatest new deal on a Hilton Head rental comes in the mail, to me, it’s junk mail. THEY swear it is “physical spam”. As far as I am concerned, “Physical Spam” comes in a can and tastes great broiled with tomato and cheese. And, guess what? I get to be right. I’m the Mommy, that’s why.

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Have I ever mentioned that I am at a complete loss when people insist on sitting around talking about things and using technical terms? The most technical word I am familiar with is “thingummy”. I am especially at a loss if the technical talk centers around computers, or any other electronic item more complicated than my hand mixer. When my husband and his brother get together, they can literally switch from coimputers to automotive mechanics to home appliances and I will never, ever get that the topic has switched (what exactly IS a CAT5e anyhow?). I am not alone, either. I have seen incredibly intelligent intellectuals reduced to tears by what my husband and his brother consider to be common language. Ebonics? No. Techno-Bonics!

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With all due apologies to my regular readers, this post is directed to a small, select group of students at Arkansas State University. These students are in serious danger of going to jail (harassment and endangerment charges) if they do not lay off. And, while I am making Biblical references, I am not citing chapter and verse because these students NEED to look these things up for themselves. However, the references are there, and all anyone needs to find them is a few minutes and a Strong’s. Oh, and by the way, kids, my next step is to contact the school and your parents… That said, on we go…..

“Shunning” is a Medieval practice. The only group in the USA that actively practices this (that I am aware of) are the Amish. Yet a small group of students that are primarily of the Baptist and Church of Christ faiths have modified this practice. Their target is a girl that is seven months pregnant. The girl was pregnant when they made friends with her, so that isn’t the problem. The problem is that she has a boyfriend they are apparently trying to get her to dump. Now, they have a right to cease being this girl’s friend, if they so choose. What they do NOT have a right to do is to decide, as a group, to “shun” her, with the stipulation that anyone who didn’t go along with it would ALSO be out of the group and treated in the same manner. They also do not have the right to shove notes under the girl’s door citing out-of-context Biblical passages about sexual immorality.

Since these Shunmeisters ARE in fact citing Biblical principal, here are a few little things they should be aware of (and I have no doubt that their various preachers will back these up) :

1. If Jesus had acted like this, there would be no such thing as salvation.
2. “Judge not that ye be not judged”, because the SAME measure that you use to judge others is the measure that God will use on YOU. And that means on ANYTHING you do, not just the specific item you are judging at the moment.
3. King David, who KILLED A MAN to get next to his main sqeeze, was forgiven by God, who apparently doesn’t have the strict standards YOU do about forgiveness.
4. Jesus Himself pardoned a woman who was convicted of being unfaithful, turning instead on those who were judging and tormenting her. (”let he who is without sin cast the first stone…”)
5. God actually ORDERED a man to marry a prostitute. Yep, it’s there. What’s more, the marriage, after a rocky start, was apparently, by what is said in the Bible, a fantastic one.
6. Mary Magdalene. Nuff said.
7. A person’s relationship with God is between that person and God. It’s none of your business. What’s more, unless you are inside a person’s mind when they pray, you are only guessing anyway.

I could go on and on. This only scratches the surface of what God and the Bible have to say about self righteous hypocracy. Causing this kind of emotional stress that can seriously endanger not only the pregnant girl, but the unborn child as well, is something that one day YOU will have to stand before God and answer for. There is also a distinct possibility that you will have to stand before a physical judge and answer harassment and endangerment charges.

Legalism is an interesting concept, one that Jesus came and did away with. However, if you insist on this legalistic shunning viewpoint, I have no problem getting Medieval on your little hiney in a court of law. You see, ladies (and I use the term loosely) this is Michelle’s Mom. And I have no intention of letting you torture my baby, or hers.

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Ah, weddings. It’s so wonderful to attend and share in that most special moment of the bride and groom, that time which shall stay with them their whole lives through. No other event is so special. Unless, of course, you have to plan all that specialness, in which case, weddings are a pain in the backside. And if you are the designated planner, it isn’t just all those flowers, cakes, songs to choose. You also have to schedule all the various speeches recited by the best man, the maid of honor, the father of the bride, and anyone else who might wish to expound on this day of all days. And, if these people you are organizing are typical, you are going to have to give them some clue about what to say in their speech. Thats where francesco vitetta wedding speeches , located at http://www.brideheaven.com/index.php?p=Francesco_Vitetta_Wedding_Speeches_Ebook, comes in. They have colected examples of every type of wedding speech and toast (as well as speeches for many other notable occasions). They are always adding new and different speeches to their database. When you find yourself in a jam, let them help you figure it out! Just click either of the above links to get to their website!

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When I was a teenager, and I remember this distinctly, I was not yet electronically challenged. I owned a stereo, one with detachable parts, and I could assemble the thing, with no problem. I even knew how to use a remote control. I know, I know. But I was a gifted child. If you can believe it, I was even able to hook the VCR up to the television, with no help whatsoever! But, somehow, I don’t know when, I lost all that. I think childbirth brings it on. Maybe there isn’t enough room in the brain to hold both electronic knowledge and nurturing information, I don’t know. All I know is that now and for the last several years, electronics have been my husband’s domain. Apparently, it’s hard work, too, because he swears alot about things I have never HEARD of (what the heck IS HDMI anyway?) and he is always in a bad mood afterwards. All my married female friends report the same thing happening in their homes. Maybe someone should do a study on this.

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It has taken me a while to write this one up because, to be honest, when I think about it I still start shaking. Last Tuesday evening, an EF3/EF4 tornado swept through my community. I live outside town, but three miles from my home, people lost everything. In my county, Sharp County, Arkansas, forty businesses were destroyed and they think the number of homes was eighty-five, but they are still occasionally finding one to add. By the grace of God alone, we had no deaths here, though more than fifty lost their lives in this storm elsewhere, and we had several close calls. The reason I am still shaking is that my husband was one of the close calls. Very. He was actually IN the tornado, and how he survived… well, like I said, by the grace of God alone.

My husband was driving home from dropping my youngest daughter off at her aunt’s house. Just south of Ash Flat, Arkansas, he and the tornado topped a hill at the same time, going in opposite directions. My husband says that by the time there was any warning at all it was too late. There is some debate about the distance he and the van were carried through the air. It was somewhere between fifty yards and a quarter mile. My husband, understandably, is a tiny bit foggy about where on the road he was at the time. The van came down, right side up, on top of a fence. The van will never run again. My husband, with “minor head lacerations” and one nasty bump on the back of his head, opened the door to the van and walked out. He has posted pictures of the van, and several from across Sharp County showing other damage, on his blog, HERE. It should be noted that about two seconds after this thing spit my husband back out, it ripped the roof off a ranch house. Ten minutes later, it all but erased Highland Arkansas.

Now, it’s almost like we live in a war zone. I think the President is due to show up, but I’m not sure. We have a seven o’clock curfew, and a military presence. The Red Cross and FEMA are here too. We are probably going to lose a lot of county residents, too. While most of the “old blood” is vowing to rebuild, a lot of folks with weaker ties have decided that this wasn’t what they had in mind in the way of home improvements and they are relocating away from tornado alley.

To give you a better idea… those forty businesses were just about all the small town of Highland HAD. I mean, they are still looking for any piece of the fire department. It completely vanished. There is no way to accurately describe what it feels like to see the place you grew up ripped apart like this. I hope you never have to feel the way we do, and have, for this past week.

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And Jimmy Hoffa is their waiter at dinner time! Really! It must be true, I read it on the internet!

Okay, okay. So it’s a crock. But it’s MUCH more interesting than what is REALLY going on around here. One of my daughters is busy on the phone with two of her fellow teen aliens, giggling and warbling over a music composition for their class in school. Everyone else is watching television, including my husband, who is letting out the occasional growl or snarl. That is not his normal behavior, but you must understand, he spent the day balancing our checking accounts. All in all, he’s taking it rather well.

Coffee. I definitely need coffee.

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