“The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life […], but no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
Was thinking about how Adam and Eve betrayed God in a Garden and how Jesus’s tomb was in a Garden.
And how that makes the story come full circle.
Cause life was given in the Garden but then Adam and Eve chose death, and then Jesus chose Death so life could be once again be given in the garden through his resurrection.
And I don’t know what to do with this
Additionally! (This is not an original thought, we’ve been going through Matthew at church)
When Christ is driven into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, the scene is diametrically opposite to Adam’s temptation.
Adam is tempted in a garden, Christ tempted in a desert .
Adam had a body not susceptible to death doubts God, Christ in flesh susceptible to death was tempted to test God.
Adam takes the fruit though he has no hunger. Christ denied bread though he had not eaten in 40 days.
Adam had dominion of the earth and gave it up to Satan, Christ was offered authority over the earth by Satan and denied it .
I’m not doing the comparison justice but it’s amazing to think about how many parallels there are of Christ fulfilling the Old testament
thinking about when margaret atwood said ‘my audience is God, because who the hell else could understand me’ there’s just… no one else. i could spend hours, days explaining myself to someone and even at my most eloquent, i just know it would still be misunderstood or misinterpreted or judged. there’s just no one else. and it brings me so much comfort sometimes in knowing there’s no one else but Him because there’s so many moments in the day where people don’t see how hard you’re trying, where maybe even you yourself don’t acknowledge how much you’re going through and how much you have been through.. but He has. every breakdown, every cry, every time you’ve put yourself back together, every win. He has and that will always always be enough for me. always.
Idk how you can go like “wow humans can only see 1% of the light spectrum and only hear 1% of audio tones were missing out on so much!” And then go “God doesnt exist because we cant test for it in a lab”
It’s even better when you point out that all of human knowledge is based upon human perception which is both narrow and fundamentally incorrect. By our own logic the universe should not exist, but it does in spite of that and rather then taking that knowledge and expanding their horizons they attempt to view the universe through the eye of a needle.
I get so tired of people saying that the Bible doesn’t give us an answer to question of suffering. This is, in my estimation, one of the most damaging messages of the modern American church. I hear it from so many pastors, even good ones. It’s all over Christian media. “We don’t know why God allows suffering.” Bullshit.
God is sovereign and we are not. Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
Suffering exists because sin exists. God allows the world to persist in the tension between redemption and extant sin so that more might be saved. Not one of His sheep will be missing.
Man is born fortrouble. Nails are made for pounding. We were made to be pounded into the shape of Christ.
Pain exposes out true hearts. Often, suffering kills the god we thought were worshipping and reveals to us the truth of who God really is.
God ordains our suffering, and if we believe that He is good, we must also believe that He will not allow us to suffer needlessly.
God will allow evil only to the degree that it brings about the very opposite of what it intends.
We are only a small part of redemptive history. Perhaps it’s true that nothing good will come to the sufferer out of his suffering, but if that’s the case, immense good will be produced elsewhere in ways that are beyond the sufferer’s ability to see.
Suffering is an integral part of God’s redemptive story. It is through suffering, not in spite of it, that God choses to extend His reign and rule to the world.
Jesus took on a real, human body and carried not just our sin, but all our suffering to the cross. “He himself bore our sickness and he carried our pains.” He has suffered with us and for us to the last spasm.
Faithfulness requires bearing pain in bodies meant for love, just as Christ did. When we suffer faithfully, we are powerful witnesses to God’s faithfulness and love.
Scripture is not silent on the subject of why we suffer. We have answers! Stop saying that we don’t know why we suffer. We do! The church is so very wrong to propagate the idea that it’s just a mystery. Our specific suffering may be mysterious to us, but suffering writ large is very much not. Truer and deeper answers are yet to be revealed, but the profound and compelling answers that Scripture provides are not to be ignored.
“In that case why should I have any anxiety? It is not my business to think about myself. It is my business to think about God. It is for God to think about me.”
…and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark…
…so that he may not die.
And you shall hang the veil from the clasps, and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil. And the veil shall separate for you the Holy Place from the Most Holy. You shall put the mercy seat on the ark of the testimony in the Most Holy Place.
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit…
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom…
…he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
You have such a cool blog! Would it make you wildly uncomfortable if I asked what paramedic training is like? I am so fascinated by the field!
Wow, thank you so much! And no, you can ask me anything about paramedic training!
Paramedic school is very intense. Less on the homework side, and more on the clinical hours side (at least at my school). We had 2 semesters to complete 550 hours (by comparison, nurses have 4 semesters to complete 600 hours). In addition, there were lots of skills that needed to be repeated over and over again in order to be considered completed. For example, I had to get over 50 IV starts in the field, with more in the classroom. Lastly, nearly all paramedic programs require a person to have already completed EMT training before being accepted.
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
Celibacy is so powerful. Liberal feminism doesn’t want you to know this because it’s men pulling the strings behind the curtain, but it’s so powerful.
Having EXTREMELY high standards and being a perfectionist when it comes to partners is one of the most self empowering things you can do. Our bodily autonomy is threatened on a daily basis, you can take control back by not allowing anyone who is not up to your extreme standards to touch you.
