Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Who Are We?



  Yesterday in class Nate talked a bit about identity. He said: "You are who you are based on two things; What people say about you and what you say about yourself.
 We went through this exercise where we were supposed to write down all the good and bad things people have said about us, and then do the same thing with what we think of ourselves. Then we were to write a paragraph which we believe to be true of ourselves. We had to share all those things with the class. After we read the paragraph, we went around the room giving words of encouragement and speaking life into the person who had just shared. It was really cool.
  I feel like I'm supposed to share my paragraph with y'all.

I feel like there are two themes to "Alana". One is a girl who has spent her life dreaming of marriage and motherhood; things of the world. The other, is a woman of God who longs to please Him. The first is flesh. She wants the things of the world and all that entails. She is lustful and selfish. The second cringes at her fleshly side. She despairs when her flesh wins the battle. She wants to look like Jesus, not the world. It's a constant inward battle. 


   Shalom,                                                                                     www.g42u.com

8 comments:

  1. That's amazing. A growing concern for me in reading your posts has been seeing you fantasizing about your future Prince Charming, your future marriage and your future home, in ways that might lead to a lot of grief for you, for your future husband (or more likely husbands if you continue that way), and for other people in your life.

    I don't mean that *everything* about your dreams is unhealthy. I don't see anything wrong with your longings for affection and companionship for example, and certainly there's nothing wrong with wanting to have children and raise them in the knowledge and love of God. In fact, I don't see anything wrong with any of your fantasizing, in itself. What troubles me is what I see missing from all that. For example I haven't seen you searching in the scriptures for a better understanding of what marriage means to God, how to prepare for that, how to choose a husband for God's purposes, how to raise children, and the implications of all that for your relationships with all men, women and children now. Maybe you have been doing that, and just not writing about it in your posts, or maybe I've missed it.

    Anyway, I hope you won't be too hard on yourself. I hope you'll give that part of you that's been fantasizing that way the same grace that you want to learn to give other Christians.

    Apart from all that, I want to say that I in reading your blog I've been awed by your strength, your courage, your faithfulness to God, and your trust in Him. It seems that nothing can keep you down, and nothing can make you lose faith, for long. By faithfulness I don't mean that you never stumble, I mean that you never stop wanting to follow Jesus, no matter how much you suffer, no matter how hard you fall.

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    1. I admit that my dreaming can get out of hand, but I do make an effort to be growing and learning what God wants from all that. I'm preparing to be a Godly wife and I'm praying for my future husband. I trust God to work it all out when it's time. I only want a man of God.
      I don't believe in divorce, so I take marriage very seriously.

      Thank you, it's been a long road...

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  2. Thank you for your friendly responses to my comments. It means a lot to me that you see some kindness in my words and that you appreciate my efforts. I was afraid you might feel burdened by some of it. I feel now like I'm doing too much preaching and not enough encouraging, not at all like I meant to do, and I need to step back and reconsider what I'm doing. Also, even though you've put this up in a public place, I keep feeling like I'm invading your privacy.

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  3. I'm having my own struggle with grace now. Not offline, but online, again and again I've seen people pretending to have a friendly interest in me, when their only interest is to use me as a pawn in their game, often at my expense, and they don't seem to see anything wrong with that. It's *very* hard for me to free myself from my resentment about that, and to have a loving attitude towards people I see doing that.

    One way I've thought of to see it more charitably is to think of it as a moral disability. I'm able to feel a lot more charitable towards someone who Does Me Wrong when I imagine that he has some kind of emotional disability, so maybe I could feel the same way when it comes from people's moral disabilities.

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  4. oh girl, i think we all have that internal battle - i think it's paul? who talks about his spirit wanting one thing and his flesh wanting another and he doesn't what he doesn't want to do and doesn't do what he does want. the good thing is, God knows we do this. And if your heart is in the right place, you'll come through on the other side. i love what you are learning and sharing in your blog :) xoxo

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    1. wow. i just re read that and holy goodness i mistyped that sentence about paul. shoot.

      he doesn't do what he wants and does do what he doesn't want. the spirit vs the flesh.

      i figure you probably gathered that, but just for the sake of the internet i should show that i'm not a total idiot...i just can't type. haha

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    2. Bahaha I didn't even read the typo.... I read it the way you meant it.

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