Saturday, August 28, 2010

To Keep On

I talked about love and joy and peace last post, and how these blessings are deep within a Christian. However, I want to make note that in hard times, it seems we can lose track of the blessings we have, even within us. In fact, inspiration seems to be needed on a regular basis, and therefore we may have to keep reminding ourselves or be reminded.

If this sounds like a mystery, it is. I have faith God provides spiritual gifts, but I seek His word for solace, and sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected sources.

The point I'm trying to make is when we are in despair from very tough times or when we see other Christians who seem to lose connection, we can't judge. But I'm urging everyone to hang on and seek God for He is good, and He can keep us going on Earth until the time comes for us to meet Him in Heaven.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Joy and Love and Hope

A writer is supposed to be good at description, but I can have trouble with this on a personal level. I have a lot of science in my blog. I had learned science in school, but after college lost faith. Although scientific fact does not necessarily render a person unfeeling, there was to me a big part missing. I also had Christian training, but it was in my head and not, I think, fully in my heart. Eventually I believe the Lord Jesus Christ rescued me from despair and hopelessness. Deep down, believing in Jesus has made a true difference in the joy, love and hope I feel. I would never give Him up, I would never exchange this for anything I had before.

This does not mean I don't have problems. But believing in the Lord has given me an added dimension to my life which helps me through when I could never do that on my own.

I've never been very outgoing, and what's in my heart does not get out to others nearly as much as I'd like. I want to express the wonder and light of being Christian. I think most Christians feel that motivation.

One can accept the Lord and then go through spiritual trials. It comes from internal doubts, which can try to take away that deep hope and love and joy. Christ reassures us. He is the way, the truth and the life. He will bring us to Heaven if we believe in Him. Nothing makes me want to leave Him. Two of the reasons I feel this way are because I think He is true and because the love and joy and hope are deeper than whatever fear or doubt I have. Church teaching tells us that faith, hope and love are fruits of the Holy Spirit. They are wonderful and give me strength.

I want to tell everyone of this deep love and joy and hope. Jesus Christ can give you life and light.

I believe in Jesus Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit. I want to be with God and His people forever. I hope you will too.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Unto Others!

I'm very excited to say my fiction mystery book, Unto Others, is available absolutely free on a Google Docs Adobe PDF file! It is a Catholic-based book which I very much hope you will enjoy. Of course, non-Catholics can read it too. I have self-published this book on a small scale and have had good feedback. Just click on the picture to get to it. The Adobe can be read on Acrobat Reader, which is available free if you don't already have it. I believe the book file can also be downloaded and saved on your own computer so you don't have to be connected to the Internet the whole time. You out there probably know more about this than I do.

The book is over 250 pages long, so the PDF format takes a few minutes to download. I have found it best to wait until it says "done" in the bottom left corner before trying to do anything with it. I hope it is worth your time, because I do think the book has important messages and yet is an intriguing mystery. In fact, I hope you will tell your friends about it, especially those who enjoy mysteries!

2019 Update: Though I accidentally erased my book files and they were gone for a time, they are now restored. I hope you will try them!

Back to Christianity

I talked in a recent post about evangelism and how I always want it to be first in my life. Somehow I got back into the subject of evolution and what different viewpoints of evolution can mean to a person's faith.

I guess I keep talking about science because I was one of the students in college, a long time ago, who got sucked into eventually believing everything is made by chance from matter and energy, and that there is no God at all needed to make our universe and everything that is in it.

Though I think that is obviously a wrong argument today, my way back did not start through reason. It was because I was emotionally miserable. I had some difficult life situations as we all do, and I saw nothing to give me hope in this life, much less in any next one.

Fortunately I had been brought up with Christian training. Then, after a long time, certain events took place in my life that showed me how rich Christian love can be. Though it seems I myself decided to try to go back to the beliefs once more, I think Christ was rescuing me. I found myself healing and renewed. And the same goes for problems since then. I can be scared from life's tribulations, but I feel the Lord will pull me through.

My beliefs also meant I could accept God as Creator of life, which made more sense than chance. It also meant that love has meaning and morals have meaning. That especially has a profound influence on our lives and uplifts our spirits when we experience it. It builds up instead of tearing down.

The more I tried to believe, the more I really believed. I believe God exists, and I believe Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Christian creeds proclaim that we believe God made all that is seen and unseen.

It seems that faith and reason interweave. As I've said before, if we think at all, we can't help but reason. But this reasoning may be right or it may be wrong. I believe true faith, which is a mystery, gives us the underpinning for right reason. We can stand strong in faith when others attack it because Jesus Christ provides the foundation for us.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Open to Comments

For a while I closed my blog to comments because I took some time off from it. I like to keep track of them if I have any comments in order to answer back. I have made some comments on other blogs, but these have not generated comments here. I know I have focused a great deal on a subject which has not been of general interest, namely biological Creationism. (I think its potential is much greater than realized and could be a great evangelization tool.)

I have opened the blog to comments now, but will probably not have many new posts. I think I may be entering a new phase of life where I will be working outside the house, so I will not have the time as I did the past few years to enter posts. If you are interested, please look at past posts and topics. This blog has been helpful to me, among other things, in learning and expressing the amazing Creation we have from the Lord, and for that it has been good.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Evangelism First

My husband and I had a nice vacation to visit relatives and now that I'm back I want to put together a positive-minded post.

I have been writing regularly in my blog for several years, and wrote a mystery book and several booklets. However, I had been feeling frustrated and at a stand-still with the resistance of persons against the idea of direct supernatural creation of life by God. I don't want my writing to be all about the negative interactions I have had. I truly admire Creation and enjoy learning about it. I've written about it in those terms, not just in antagonism to those who don't agree. I had given some talks and debated with persons on the Internet (on a small scale). Some of this activity has been positive and successful. But then I got into negative debate, enough to discourage me about future success. So I took some time off and do feel better about things in general.

I hope to always serve the Lord as the priority of my life. We all have various gifts and can serve in different ways. I'm not very outgoing, yet I'd like to evangelize. I think of what I can do to tell someone about Christ by something I do or write. This includes prayer for those who are out in the field, doing the living work of telling the Good News.

I think those of us who talk about Creation care about how God is perceived. Those who insist on theistic evolution (indirect creation and evolution of life) worry that atheists will reject what they think is ignorant (even if this perception is incorrect). Those who believe in direct supernatural creation believe the discussion of it in the classroom will bring students' imaginations closer to the possibilities of God's touch and then God Himself. Young-Earth Creationists are concerned about Scriptural Truth and that people will not be turned away from it.

The theistic evolutionists also are afraid that science will suffer if we say about unknown aspects of life that "God did it." Yet we can keep on discovering life as it is, and seek knowledge for medicine and the like under the auspices of systems biology. This is what many researchers are already doing with their computer analyses of genes, proteins and other cell processes. They don't have to know how or whether something evolved to see how it works now. In fact, wrong speculation about evolution can mislead theory, such as the case of thinking that all non-coding DNA was "junk DNA." This has proven false and slowed down research in this area for many years. We need the clear theory-neutral facts, and if researchers want to speculate on theory such as evolution, they should do so in clearly marked separate sections of their paper.

Christians should want to put our solidarity in Christ at the forefront, then work out our other concerns with each other. Though science is important, evangelism for Jesus Christ is much more so. The body lasts only so long in this world, no matter how well our medicine works. The everlasting life of the soul is our more important concern. Consider the thought of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:2 (NABRE) when he says about our bodies (tents), "For in this tent we groan, longing to be furthered clothed with our heavenly habitation." Now, I very well know we want to treat children for cancer and have them live to their full earthly life-span, but Paul appreciated the greater power of God. Paul said in v. 4, "we do not wish to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

I want to serve the Lord in the forefront in my life.