rosieanne91 on Revelife

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Saturday, 31 January 2009

God's influence in my life

I was about to start writing about how, whilst I do feel God with me, I never really feel like God is guiding me to do something or like he is giving me guidance on what to do about my problems. I hear others talking about how God has guided them to do a certain thing or how he helped them about of a difficult situation by showing them the right thing to do.

I’ve never really felt that way if I’m honest. At times it does make me feel a little inadequate in a way or – when I’m completely at a loss – that God just doesn’t hold me to the same esteem as others, ridiculous I know. Nevertheless, despite my prayers and my hopes, I’ve never really felt that way.

Anyway, I did say ‘about to’… I was reading one of the recent blogs on the Revelife front page about gossip (http://www.revelife.com/revelife/691083701/what-to-do-when-youre-around-gossip/). I was thinking about how it’s particularly relevant to my life at the moment because I’ve been thinking about my gossiping a lot recently and how I’ve been trying to stop but somehow it just happens when I suddenly realised that this always happens to me.

Whenever I’m struggling with an issue – gossip, sinning, dating – an article seems to pop up on the Revelife front page that offers me guidance or helps me see what the right thing to do is. I’ve kinda decided that maybe that’s God way of helping me out. He knows I’m gonna read the blogs so he makes sure that the ones on there will help me.

You probably think I’m being ridiculous but I think this is God’s way of helping me out.

What about you? How does God work in your life?

Rosie

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

It's hard dealing with parents...

Because I was such a confirmed atheist for so long my mother is having trouble with the fact that I’m now a Christian. Actually, she doesn’t believe that I truly am.

When I first started going to church she allowed it but I could tell she was less than impressed. I assumed it was because I was attending an Evangelist church when she herself is Catholic (but that’s another story for another day). Nevertheless she allowed me to go.

Then one day she asked me why I was going to church. I told her because I wanted to. She started asking me if I believed in God and what I thought about Jesus and things like that and then when I told her I did believe in God and believed Jesus was the Messiah she started getting, well almost angry.

She started going on about how I had completely rejected all faith and how I had even gone as far as calling religious people ‘stupid’ (it’s true, I did, I’m not proud of it) and that she see how I could have done such a complete 180 and now want to go to church and such.

So basically it was revealed that my mother does not believe that I have faith in God and Jesus Christ. She thinks I only want to attend church because one of my friends does and on top of this she believes the church I want to attend is some kind of cult and started asking me if I’d given them any money!

I don’t know how to explain to her that going to church is my choice. I’m not going because of my friend; I’m not going because I’ve been sucked in by a cult. I’m going because I want to praise Jesus and celebrate my love for God with others who feel exactly the same.

I can’t explain to her why I believe in God, that he saved me from a life of horrible sins, because then I have to admit my past to her and I know she’d be horrified and extremely disappointed.

On top of all this I haven’t been able to attend church for the past few weeks. I had been going to a service on Sundays evenings and she started going on about how Sunday nights are the only time everyone is in at my house and so it’s family time. She even swooped as low as saying that I was going to university in the fall and she’ll hardly ever see me then so our time together now is important.

So basically I’ve been blackmailed out of going to church by my own mother, someone I would have expected to be happy that I’ve found the Lord. Whilst I’m still connecting to God through reading and studying my Bible and prayer I miss church and the true feeling of being in the Lord’s presence and am eager to return. My mother has invited me to Catholic church with her but I have my reasons for not wanting to worship in a Catholic church which I wont go into right now.

Does anyone have any advice on what to do? Should I stand up to my mother and continue to attend my own choice of church? Should I concede and attend church with her? Should I not attend church at all? Any guidance? Has anyone else found themself in a similar situation?

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

so i thought i'd share with you all a little about myself
i'm definately going out on limb doing this
i realise i will get judged and i know a lot of people aren't very forgiving
i do hope that someone will learn from my story though

i was raised catholic and went to catholic school
i think this is part of the reason i became an atheist
religion was forced down my throat all my life and so when i got to my early teens and started questioning everything that was where i started
i couldn't prove God exsisted so i wouldn't accept him
i was very scientific back then so if science couldn't explain something i rejected it
science couldn't explain how Jesus rose from the dead so i assumed it was a lie
i got very cynical and saw religion as a means of controlling people

as i moved into my mid-teens i became more resolute in my beliefs, or lack thereof
as well as rejecting religion myself i thought of those with faith as somewhat inferior i guess you could say
i believed i had it right and that they were all just buying into a lie, that they were fools for accepting what i saw to be blatant lies with no grounds whatsoever
i think this is a bad attitude to have even if you don't have faith
it's so narrowminded, ignorant and disrespectful, i'm ashamed to have ever felt this way

when i began college i started dating this guy
a few months later i decided i was 'ready' to sleep with him
i wasn't a christian so i had no reason not too
i believed we were in love and that sex was a natural progression of our relationship
needless to say this is a choice i've come to regret

nothing is more regretful to me than the person i became after we broke up a month later we first had sex
i was angry with my ex, as i saw it he'd used me for sex
i started getting wasted a lot and doing stuff with guys
one of them was one of my exes friends, i wasn't even attracted to him, i just did it to spite my ex

then i slept with the guy one of my friends liked and was about to start dating
that's probably the worse thing i've done
we kept it a secret and she only found out a couple of months ago
she knew he'd be fooling around with other girls so she pretended it didn't bother her - still does - but i know it must have hurt her and i'm more sorry than you can imagine for that

towards the end of summer i started to realise that i'd become a horrible person, by my own standards if not anyone elses
i stopped drinking as much and starting staying away from guys
i felt a lot better for it
i also started questioning my outlook on God
i realised that whilst i didn't have any proof that he exsisted, i didn't have any that he didn't

i couldn't tell you when exactly i started believing in God
i didn't have a numinous expreience or anything
i just know now that i believe God exsists
i believe his son Jesus Christ died to absolve my sins
i believe the Bible is the word of God
i believe i should live my life to Jesus' standards and i believe that if i'm lucky, God will grant me eternal salvation

quite a turn around from being a resolute atheist but i don't care
i think God called me when he saw the mess i was making of myself
he started by guiding me out of my sinful ways and then he revealed himself to me so that i could embrace his love

i'm trying to hard to be a 'good christian' but i do know i have a long way to go
i'm still dealing with issues of my past sins and i still have a tonne of questions but i know God will help me figure these things out as i walk through life with him by my side

this blog is basically going to be about my life
about my daily struggles and about my daily triumphs
a place to talk through my issues and ask for guidance

i hope you wont judge me too much for who i was before i found Christ
i hope you'll stick with me and i hope we can be friends :)
love rosie xoxo